How Do Chestnuts Spread Their Seeds? A Detailed Explanation of the Dispersal Methods

Chestnuts spread their seeds through the rolling and bouncing of the fruit after it naturally falls, but today chestnuts are all spread by human planting.

1. How are chestnuts planted?

1. Site selection

A chestnut orchard should be established on sandy loam with a low water table and good drainage. Avoid planting in saline-alkaline soil, in low-lying, wet, flood-prone sites, or in windy places. When opening up a chestnut orchard on hilly and sloping land, choose gentle terrain and near-mountain areas with thicker soil layers, then gradually expand to areas with poorer conditions.

2. Seed selection

For variety selection, the main planted varieties should be fine varieties bred locally, according to different culinary requirements. For example, chestnut varieties for roasting and chestnut varieties for cooking should take into account both foreign trade exports and the needs of the domestic market. At the same time, achieve a reasonable mix of early, mid-season and late varieties.

3. Planting

Reasonable close planting is a basic measure for increasing yield per unit area. For plains chestnut orchards, 30-40 trees per mu is suitable, and for mountain chestnut orchards, 40-60 trees per mu is suitable. For planned close-planted chestnut orchards, 60-111 trees per mu can be planted, with gradual thinning by removing alternate rows and alternate trees.

4. Fertilization

The application time is best in autumn after the fruit harvest, as the temperature is higher in this period and the fertilizer decomposes easily; at the same time, this is the period of new root growth, which favors absorption, thereby promoting the accumulation of nutrients in the tree and having a good effect on the differentiation of female flowers the following year. For topdressing, quick-acting nitrogen fertilizer is the main type, combined with phosphorus and potassium fertilizer; the topdressing time is early spring and summer. In spring application, generally apply 0.3-0.5 kg of urea per newly planted fruit tree, and 2 kg of urea per large tree in full fruit stage. After topdressing, combine with watering to fully bring out the fertilizer effect.

Summer topdressing is carried out from late July to mid-August. At this time, applying quick-acting nitrogen fertilizer and phosphorus fertilizer can promote fruit enlargement, plump flesh, and improved fruit quality.

5. Pollination

Chestnut trees mainly rely on wind to spread pollen, but because chestnut trees have the phenomena of female and male flowers maturing at different times and self-pollination, a single variety often produces empty burs due to poor pollination. Therefore, a newly built chestnut orchard must be configured with 10% pollinator trees. Practice has proved that in Xinyang City, using Chushuhong as a pollinator tree is relatively good.

6. Watering

Chestnuts prefer water. Generally, watering once before sprouting and once during the period of rapid fruit growth is beneficial to the normal growth and development of the fruit trees and to improving fruit quality.