?? Chestnuts ??

After seeing a post on here about chestnuts, I thought I would get some and see if they would grow. I ordered some off e-bay and all it said was chestnuts for a type. They are coming out of MN and I got to wondering about the type they were. So I start reading and find out that horse / buckeye chestnuts are poisonous. Are they poisonous to wildlife and live stock? Can any one tell me the type these are? I ask the seller and they say the tree in in the yard of what was their grandparents and has been there as long as they can remember.

The color of those look more like buckeyes than chestnuts. I had a decent crop of nuts this year, although they were all different sizes. My trees are Chinese chestnuts, not American chestnuts, but the nuts look more like an acorn, and the cap is a woolly thing that covers the top to close to a third of the way down the nut. Where as the buckeye has a covering, more like a walnut or hickory has, but there will be two nuts in it. That right there would be the key to knowing for sure what they are. From the color and the scar on the nut, me thinks those are buckeyes, Mark. Don’t eat buckeyes!

Those look to be buckeyes or horse chestnuts. If the nut is rounded they are not chestnuts. A chestnut will have a point at the end of the nut.

I just ordered 50 Chestnuts to plant. $14.00 shipped.

But they do need to be chilled in the fridge for 2-3 months before planting.

But what kind are they? I don't really want to plant poison chestnuts Where livestock has access to them if they will kill the live stock.

Look like buckeyes to me.

" Chestnuts roasting over an open fire, Jack frost nipping at your nose"

As said, don't look like a chestnut at all to me. I don't know what kind the trees are at my parent's but they are delicious. They've been there probably 30 years or so and have nuts pretty much every year, differ in size sometimes. They are super easy to grow from the nut. Just shove them in a pot just coving the nut. Can't leave them in the pot very long, vicious tap root wll find it's way out the weep holes and into the ground by year 2. I'm wanting to speed up the process a bit and am looking to buy some this spring that are already a couple years old.

Mine are Chinese. I won't ship them due to the worms, especially bad this past season.
Maybe your Ag extension can ID yours.

Following but confused

Their HORSE Chestnuts.

When I ordered them I did not know that Buckeyes / horse chestnuts were poison. From what I can see, they look like buckeyes / horse chestnuts. For those of you that have buckeyes do the squirrels eat them? I have been told by the seller they do.

Squirrels can eat them as they are somewhat resistant to the toxins in buckeyes and horse chestnuts, but they have to have nothing else available. Even for squirrels they are basically a food of last resort.

Thanks Anthony T. My guess is they won't grow here anyway. There is a reason it is the great plains, not the great forest. I am much closer to zone 2, then zone 4.

Mark, they may grow. The major reason the plains had no trees was due to lightning/fires... We tend to not let wildfires rage out of control anymore.

Mike

I have planted 100's of trees here at the house and very few have lived. The soil is poor, the wind is bad, freezing rain breaks them off, Snow drifting in breaks them off. I have never had a fire here and I am sure less than 10% of the tree I plant live. Those are the ones I water too. I thought I would try them, since I never have.

Buckeyes, just a worthless nut.

look like buckeyes to me...I had one in my yard at the last house

When I was a kid in SE Wisconsin there were a lot of HORSECHESTNUT trees that yielded Chestnuts identical to those. They had a very spiny husk around them. Never really did much with them except fill our pockets with them and throw them as hard as we could during neighborhood wars. They'd leave a really nice goose egg if you hit somebody in the forehead.

We'd also throw them into the Homecoming bonfire as they'd pop in the flames.

Moosetrot

I fondly remember the violent horse chestnut wars we had as teenagers.

Our horse chestnuts were very spiky and as big as a baseball.

We were civilized enough to remove the husks before we walloped somebody on the forehead or cheekbone. They were spiny enough that I think they may have stuck to whomever we hit with them.

Moosetrot

Yep, as a young kid I raked up a pile of leafs to jump into. Just so happened it was under one of those trees that time. I still remember that first and last jump into that pile. Rather uncomfortable.


So the boys and I picked a basket full up when we were out hunting thus year thinking they are chestnut. They had the spikey covering. The nuts are not nice and round but more flat on the sides where they grow nexted to each other. Normally there was 3 to 5 per spikey husk. Are these not safe to eat. That's why we picked them up was to eat but I have not tries to rost them yet. Seemed like deer ate them every we got them.

Check out Chestnut Ridge of Pike County if you want. I have raised chestnuts from seed for 10 years.

I'm looking for a commercial source of chinese chestnut seeds to plant. I won't buy seeds on eBay-- too risky to know what you are getting. I enjoy using my acorn planter (called "The Squirrel") & I bought the larger of the 2 sized tools, partly in case I decide to try planting some chestnuts. Indications of what I read online (& personal experience) though is that chestnut trees are very challenging to grow.

A great source of info on this topic can be had from the American Chestnut Society. They have a website I suspect.

American chestnuts have been bred with Chinese chestnuts to achieve blight resistance. Now at just 1/16 Chinese, the trees are still resistant. True American chestnuts often sprout in the Appalachians and grow a few years before succumbing to disease.

the horse chestnuts here all the animals eat them squirrel's deer bear.

Can not positively ID the nuts you posted but can say of the 50 nuts I gathered and started by putting in the fridge for 3 months 48 of them sprouted and got put into 2 gal pots, 5 got put in the ground and are doing exceptionally well. The remaining trees have also continued to grow in the pots. If you were closer you could have the potted trees for the taking, 3 years old and 3-4 feet tall already and from what I can see they all survived our 136 inches of snow this year with a week plus of sub zero temps

I put the ones I got in a plastic bag with some potting soil in the coal bin. It would have been in the 20's and maybe low 30s in there since January when I got them. Trees don't do well in ND. Clay soil, hard winters, hail and never ending wind seem to take its toll on them. I am hoping some grow.

Those are definitely not chestnuts.

Those a Buckeyes and Poisonous. Like a man from Indiana in Florida told me once. He drove all the way to Florida to hunt Gators and what was the first thing he saw was a Dang Buckeye a worthless Nut!!!

Those are buckeyes, chestnuts don't have as large an eye as a buckeye.
Grew up with two trees in the front yard , and don't remember anything eating them there.
Did see squirrels gathering them in the woods along a river, but not sure they ate them.
Chestnuts in my experience don't get as big as a buckeye.
I know where there's a grove of chestnuts , and a couple trees on a couple other places.
Buckeyes have an outside shell that has some sharp pointy burs on them.
Chestnuts ,have a lot of long spears on them , and you need welding gloves to peel them.
You can step on them and smash the nuts out, but it's easier to wear welding gloves.

Just like most Demoncrats!!

From what I have read on Buckeyes wildlife can and does eat them. If any tree grows here it is a plus.

It will poison your livestock.

https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_aegl.pdf

I had read that too. I just will plant them across the road and not in the pasture.

I planted three Chinese chestnuts tonight. I bought the bare root trees from Chief River Nursery. I think I like them better than Dunston's, we'll see

I planted them kind of in one cove