Reposted from CALS Notes [2014-08-01]:
For most people, chestnuts bring connotations of Christmas or the Chinese New Year, but for Brian Caldwell and other agroforestry enthusiasts, they also represent potential as a valuable food crop. Caldwell, a research support specialist in the Department of Horticulture who grows nut and fruit trees on his farm in West Danby will be one of several speakers at a gathering hosted by the The New York Nut Growers on Saturday.
The group will meet from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at BWW farm on Searsburg Road in Trumansburg, to explore the latest developments in growing chestnut trees, and the public is invited to tour a demonstration grove of chestnut and other nutbearing trees. Caldwell will talk about the ideal growing conditions for chestnuts – with a hot season you get much bigger nuts, and with a cold season they are smaller, so chestnuts thrive at times when other tree fruit, such as apples, might suffer – as well as organic management of pests such as the chestnut weevil.
For more information about the event, and the history of American chestnut cultivation, check out this Ithaca Times article.
Photo by Andrés Nieto Porras