Who plants chestnut and persimmon trees for wildlife? Is it worth it? Are they slow to produce???

Jerry looked in to planting some persimmons. It takes 10 years foe them to bear fruit.
I think chestnuts are 4 or 5 maybe.

Apples they said were a good choice.

Check with your local ascs office. Here they sometimes have certain varieties they supply if your planting for wildlife.

Persimmon trees are the bomb. I have not planted any. I also like nut trees too .

I have done permsimmons. They are slow, but the deer love them.
Best luck I have had is with wild plum. We have 3 year old tree's already producing fruit.
And the deer go crazy for them.

I planted persimmon about 5 years ago. Trees are doing great but no fruit yet.

Fact, more wildlife depend upon Oak trees than any other.

I have never seen a transplanted (from the wild) persimmon tree bear fruit.

Yeah but oaks take 50 yrs to produce acorns.

Jerry brother got some kind of supposedly fast growing oaks that were supposed to produce in like 10 yrs. Its been 15 or more and still no acorns.

Had saw tooth oaks produce relatively fast.

Started persimmons from seeds last 3 years.
Keep.seeds in fridge over winter.

Seeds take months to germinate.

Recently read better to plant seeds in fall.

If you want persimmon seeds to germinate source them from dung that has set all winter

Planted about 5 lbs of chestnuts for 10 years or so planted in fall tried spring deep and shallow started seedlings Nothing Seems like deer and everthing else likes to dig them out and eat them seedlings too tubes don't stop mice and other small rodents
My suggestion would be to start and transplant seedlings at a couple years old with protection and around other trees so they don't stand out like a beacon for deer

Persimmons have separate male and female trees. Males never produce fruit.

Persimmon grow wild around here. If you let them, they will take over your pasture. I can't imagine planting one.


I tried planting chestnut one time. When they got old enough to start producing I found out they weren't chestnuts at all but sawtooth oaks. Everything else I bought from that company died. I figure they knew everything would die and I would never know they sent me the wrong thing.


You know those invasive ornamental pears that everyone hates? We've got those around here but this year I tried grafting some bartlett cuttings to one of them. It will be awhile before I know if it worked. I always have trouble getting fruit trees to live so if this grafting thing works I should be able to grow a ton of pears.

Mine do, as well as the Paw Paw's

What if the male trees identify as a female tree? Will they produce fruit then?

Yes Phil, in woketopia anything is possible.

Is a good way to pass the winter. Chestnuts grow pretty fast. As stated, don’t plant the tree; tube or no tube, until you can ring the nut off the seedling. They will get torn up. Best to keep the seedlings in pots for two years before planting. Get a tall pot when initially planting. Collect nuts in fall, put in bag in fridge in peat moss, once the start shooting a tap root in late winter put them in a pot and cover with two inches with mix shown above. Works great

Very nice! Planted 30 chestnuts last weekend along with 25 butternuts at the cabin that makes 390 fruit and nut trees planted in the last 5 years. Planted a mix of 75 pines 15 years ago, a porkey found them this year and cleaned three pretty good. All our trees were seedlings but we didn't start them. Should be a nice place for the critters in 20 years.

LOL.LOL.

If you want persimmons to produce fruit faster graft on some buds from a good producer. I planted some seedling American persimmons years ago and then grafted on some selected american varieties. Meador was one if memory serves. The grafted part of the tree produces regular crops.

In general anything that is grafted will start to bear fruit (or nuts) much sooner than a seedling will.