One-Year-Old Badgersett Chestnut Bare-Root Dormant PLANTS (March 2024 Shipping)

****These are chestnut plants, NOT chestnut seeds. These are the only actual plants that are for sale on our website at this time. Every single other thing on this website at this time is a seed.

IMPORTANT ORDER NOTE: If you are ordering chestnut plants please do not order other seed packets in the same order.

SHIPPING RESTRICTION NOTICE: Due to quarantine restrictions, we are not shipping chestnut plants to California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Louisiana, or Michigan. We are also not shipping them internationally.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON SHIPPING: It is looking like a very early spring here in the Midwest. For the health of the plants we intend to ship these plants to you ASAP in the month of March.

Badgersett/EFN Chestnut and Hazelnut Limit Agreement: By purchasing these seeds you are agreeing to the terms and conditions found at this link.

Castanea spp. (complex interspecific hybrids)

Origin: Badgersett Research Farm, Canton, Minnesota

Improvement status: Breeding population (cultivated, semi-domesticated, genetically diverse “hybrid swarm”)

Life cycle: Perennial

Pricing:

Bundle of 10: For a bundle of the 10 the price is $18 per tree. The total cost is $180 to you per ten pack. We are only charging an additional $4.21 for shipping. So the total is $184.21 for ten.

Bundle of 50: For a bundle of fifty the price is $12 per tree. The total cost is $600 to you a fifty pack. We are only charging an additional $4.21 for shipping. So the total is $604.21 for ten.

Technically, we are not shipping these to you through our online store system. These will be mailed manually at the post office. Please select the cheapest shipping option on our website, which should be $4.21. Please make sure your shipping address is correct!

Tree details/Growing tips:

We’re incredibly excited to be offering Badgersett chestnut PLANTS (not seeds!) for the first time in nearly a decade. Our good friend Alex Tanke grew these trees in his nursery set-up just outside of Madison, Wisconsin. They were sown in late May 2023, making them about 9 months old.

The average height of these trees is 13 inches. Some may be as tall as two feet. No tree we ship will be less than 11 inches. The average diameter of the stem at one inch above the soil level is around .17 inches, with a range from .13 to .25 inch.

For those that may not be aware, trees are frequently sold as “bare-root dormant”. They are dug up in the early spring while the plant is still dormant, and shipped with no soil around the roots. The roots need to stay moist, do not let them dry out. 

Upon the arrival of the trees, it is a good idea to soak the roots in a bucket of water for a half hour.

These trees should immediately be planted into their new permanent home or a nursery bed, or potted up and grown in a container until you are ready to field plant. 

Upon the plants arrival, if you aren’t quite ready to plant them in their permanent home, but you intend to still plant them in their permanent home this spring, you could immediately “heel” them into the ground. Dig a small hole, put the roots of the trees in the hole, and cover all the roots with soil. This can buy you a little time. Another option is to cover the roots in moist sawdust until you are ready to plant. Whatever you do, don’t let the roots dry out. Plant the trees before they start to leaf out.

Badgersett background:

Developed by Philip Rutter of Badgersett Research Farm in Canton, Minnesota, Badgersett hybrid chestnuts are a highly genetically diverse, multi-generational, multi-species hybrid swarm of 5 species of chestnut — primarily American chestnut (C. dentata) and Chinese chestnut (C. mollissima), but also including contributions from Japanese (C. crenata) and European chestnuts (C. sativa), and Chinese dwarf chinquapins (C. seguinii) — created with the goal of combining the valuable traits of the various species into high-performing all-purpose trees with exceptional cold-hardiness.

Badgersett has been breeding, testing, and selecting chestnuts at their home farm in southeast Minnesota since the early 1980s, and the plants we’re offering are seedlings of selected mother trees that are productive and have good nut qualities, while also having withstood 3-4 decades of severe Minnesota winters (multiple winters with low temps of -35° to -40° F).

These plants are open-pollinated seedlings of two specific seed parent trees selected for long-term all-purpose performance and outstanding response to the severe winter of 2018-2019, plus a bulked seedlot that combines seed from approximately 6-8 trees selected for large nut size. Chestnut blight has been present at Badgersett since 2006; seed parent trees have demonstrated good tolerance to blight in Minnesota, but they are not completely resistant. We expect that most seedlings will be tolerant enough to make useful long-term orchard trees, and a smaller proportion will likely be unacceptably susceptible to chestnut blight.

As we enter into an uncertain ecological future beset with volatility from climate change and environmental degradation, we believe it is useful for the agroforestry practitioners of the world to be trialing trees from genetically diverse populations like Badgersett’s. Diversity means resilience. Thank you for doing your part to help our species adapt to the ever-changing world of tomorrow!