FAQs

About Our Chestnuts

Are chestnuts gluten-free?

Yes.

Are your chestnuts certified organic?

Yes.

Are your chestnuts GMO?

No.

Do you grow American chestnuts?

The American Chestnut (castanea dentata) was a mighty keystone species of the Eastern Woodlands, and was an important source of wildlife habitat, human food, wood, tannins, and other useful material for millennia — until it became effectively extinct as a result of the accidental import of a fungal pathogen in 1904. In the last century, much work has been done — by the many chapters of the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF), the American Chestnut Cooperators’ Foundation (ACCF), and many others — to breed mostly-American trees that are blight-resistant, in order to (re)introduce those trees to the forests of Eastern North America. There is some promising progress in that work, but pure American Chestnuts cannot survive in the wild — and any version of a successful “reintroduction” of castanea dentata would involve some degree of hybridization between American chestnuts and some of the world’s other wonderful species of chestnuts, including Chinese, Japanese, and European. 

Reforesting the chestnuts of the Eastern Woodlands is a noble and worthwhile goal, and it is not our focus. Instead, we focus on transitioning degraded former corn/soy/hay fields into vibrant perennial agricultural systems that create wildlife habitat on agricultural lands, build soil, clean water, and pull carbon from the atmosphere. This requires that we plant trees that can reliably produce delicious, nutritious food, while thriving in today’s pest and pathogen environment, and not depending on the use of toxic chemicals. Today, pure American trees are not able to do that. There are definitely some American genetics in our orchards (as well as some European), but the species most prominently represented are Chinese and Japanese.

From a habitat perspective, there is definitely value in restoring “more” American chestnut trees to the forest, if/when that becomes possible — but broadly, the habitat benefits of hybrid chestnuts are far better than the habitat benefits of no chestnuts at all. Most wildlife that want to live in a chestnut tree or eat a chestnut are very happy to do so with a hybrid chestnut. And there is a growing body of evidence that many of the species formerly thought to only associate with American chestnut trees in fact associate with hybrid chestnuts as well. 

What kind of chestnuts do you grow?

By combining the best traits of all the major chestnut species, we and other orchardists are making a “melting pot” population that is healthier, more vigorous, more productive, and better suited to temperate North America's climate and pest/pathogen environment. We grow open-pollinated seedling chestnut trees from orchards that include Chinese, Japanese, European, and American genetics, as well as many hybrids between those species.

“Seedlings” means that each tree we grow is an individual with its own unique DNA and heritage. Compare this with most commercial tree crops (apples, pears, oranges, bananas, walnuts, pecans, avocados etc.) which are almost exclusively based on thousands of clones of a few individuals.

“Open-Pollinated” means people are not controlling which tree pollinates which other tree to fertilize each new seedling — it is up to them, the wind, and chance.

“Hybrid” does not mean GMO — we are talking about the totally natural process by which trees of different (but closely-related) species can pollinate each other to make a new seedling with mixed heritage. For example, a pure chinese mother could be pollinated by a pure japanese partner, or a half-japanese / half-european mother could be pollinated by a partner that is a mix between american, chinese, and european, etc. This is similar to how your parents and grandparents may each have their own heritage, and they came together to make the one and only you.

But, isn’t it best that we eat food from “native” plants?

There is a lot of benefit to increasing the diversity of plants in our landscapes, to support more diverse habitat for wildlife. And there is certainly much value in intentionally promoting species often described as “native”. And also, many people overstate and oversimplify the distinction between “native” and “non-native” plants, assuming that any plant that was not widely naturalized in North America at the time of European contact would today cause ecological harm in North America. This is certainly not the case.

To put this in perspective, native peoples of North America engaged in ambitious and large-scale projects to influence the landscapes they inhabited and make the landscape more productive of human food and fodder for game animals. These multi-millennia practices of tending the land certainly included favoring some plants over other plants, moving plants around, and importing plants with useful traits over long distances.

Almost every food you’ve ever eaten is the result of some process of domestication, hybridization, and breeding, and almost every food you’ve ever eaten originates with a plant that originally evolved on another continent. Apples come from Kazakhstan. Rice comes from East Asia. Even foods like corn and beans that are often thought of as “native” staples but were in fact imported thousands of miles to North America from Mesoamerica by Native Americans. Etc. Even if the American chestnut were not functionally extinct, people whose goal is to grow chestnuts for food would still probably want to hybridize it with other species to get the best quality, best tasting, most disease and pest resistant, and most productive trees.

What about chestnut blight?

Our trees derive from many generations of open pollination between Chinese, Japanese, European, and American chestnut trees, from breeding projects (dating back to the 1940s) that have selected for multiple generations of blight resistance, among other traits. While individual trees may show minor signs of blight, the population overall is well-adapted and resistant. We plant exclusively seedlings (each a unique genetic individual) at higher densities to allow selection of the most resilient trees.

How do your chestnuts compare to chestnuts at the grocery store?

Some of the chestnuts available in Asian grocery stores in the U.S. are Chinese Chestnuts (castanea mollissima) imported from China. If you’re accustomed to those kinds of chestnuts, you’ll find the chestnuts we grow to be familiar — just much fresher and better-quality.

Chestnuts available in U.S. supermarkets are most often European Chestnut (Castanea sativa) imported from Italy. Our chestnuts differ from those chestnuts in a few important ways:

  • Our chestnuts are certified organic, and we manage our orchards way beyond USDA organic standards — compared to chestnuts at the grocery store, which are almost all coming from conventional sources that use herbicides and pesticides, and are almost always fumigated as part of the importation process.

  • Our chestnuts are typically medium to medium-large, can be slightly sweeter, have a yellower color, and are sometimes denser (which lends itself to longer cook times at a lower temperature).

  • Since our nuts are grown and processed regionally, they don't suffer from quality issues common with imports like drying out or molding during long transport.

We encourage all customers to check out our guidance on storing and cooking our chestnuts, because it may be a little different from what you’re accustomed to.

Planting & Tree Management

How long do your chestnut trees to bear?

The trees we grow generally begin to bear meaningful yields of chestnuts by their 5th-6th year in the field. Yields increase annually at least for the first few decades of a tree’s life. Some individual trees can produce 20-30 pounds by year 10, and others will reach 300 pounds per tree by Year 20-25, though yields can be variable in early years.

What site preparation do you recommend if I want to plant chestnut trees?

  • To prepare tree rows, we typically use a rotary deep spader to turn soil about 16 inches deep, reducing compaction and creating favorable root establishment conditions.

  • In contexts where it is infeasible to prepare tree rows with a spader, we prepare planting positions with a hydraulic auger mounted on a skid steer.

  • When sites show evidence of compaction, we subsoil.

  • After mechanical planting prep, then plant diverse seed mixes designed to build soil health, provide fodder for livestock, and offer nectar flow for honeybees and other pollinators. For sites transitioning from conventional agriculture, we recommend at least one full season of preparation with cover crops.

What planting method and spacing do you use?

After mechanical preparation, we plant all trees by hand rather than using mechanical planters for better tree placement and higher survivability. For silvopasture systems, we currently plant trees along 40’ alleys, with 16’ in-row spacing, for an initial density of about 68 trees per acre. In cases where we don’t expect an orchard to be grazed, we most often plant on a 20’ x 20’ grid.

How do you handle tree selection and thinning?

We plant seedlings at higher densities to allow selection of the best-performing trees. We plan to thin to approximately 40 trees per acre by years 20-25, removing trees based on production, form, and disease resistance. By year 10, well-managed trees can easily span 20-25 feet, so wider spacing prevents excessive early competition.

What tree protection do you use?

We plant every tree with a 6’ Plantra tree shelter secured to their proprietary fiberglass stake. After extensive trials comparing Plantra tubes, Tree Pro tubes, and welded wire cages, we found Plantra tubes far superior for tree health, rodent management, human safety, and ease of installation. Trees typically outgrow these shelters between years 6-8. If you are looking to procure a quantity of these tubes for your planting, we offer them to peer growers for $8.50 per tube/stake unit.

Processing & Market Development

What processing facility are you building?

Through a USDA grant focused on on-shoring organic commodities, we're developing what will be the largest chestnut processing facility in the country, designed to serve as a shared path-to-market for hundreds of other growers across the Northeast. The facility will be certified organic, located at our home farm in Salem, NY, and capable of handling 500K - 1M+ pounds annually. It will include equipment for cleaning, sizing, sorting, hot water treatment, drying, storage, shelling, and milling.

What products will your processing facility produce?

We'll focus on both fresh chestnuts and dried products including:

  • Fresh in-shell chestnuts (multiple sizes)

  • Chestnut flour (fine and coarse grinds)

  • Chestnut flakes (similar to oatmeal texture)

  • Value-added products (as the market develops)

What are current chestnut prices?

Currently, we sell fresh organic chestnuts for $13/pound retail. For growers looking to wholesale chestnuts to our processing facility, we estimate paying $3.50-4.00/pound for completely unprocessed nuts (with some burrs, unsized, untreated), though this could vary based on quality and cull rates of 10-20%.

Economics & Market Analysis

What's the future potential for chestnuts in the Northeast?

Analysis from the Savanna Institute suggests a market opportunity for at least 200,000 acres of chestnut orchards in the U.S. In the Northeast, our GIS analysis has identified over 200,000 acres suitable for chestnut agroforestry in the Upper Hudson Valley alone. If just 10% of viable acreage were developed, it could produce approximately 40 million pounds of organic chestnuts annually.

Currently, Breadtree has ~300 acres planted or planned through 2026, and another 400-600 acres have been recently planted or are plannedby other regional growers, with potential for around 800 acres in the region by end of 2027.

Will market saturation be a concern?

While there is real potential to grow the U.S. market for fresh chestnuts by several orders of magnitude, we operate on the assumption that market saturation for fresh chestnuts is already inevitable given current plantings. This is one reason we're focusing heavily on dried products like flour. The fresh market may become more competitive, but the gluten-free flour market represents a much larger opportunity for value-added processing that can absorb greater production volumes.

What yields can you expect from chestnut production?

Our (intentionally conservative) modeling projects ~1,000 lbs/acre by year 10 for silvopasture systems, though individual trees can produce 20-30 pounds by year 10. At maturity, well-managed orchards can yield 1,500-3,500 pounds per acre annually. However, yields can be variable in early years even for healthy trees.

When do you expect a new chestnut orchard to become profitable?

For an individual chestnut orchard without debt, annual profitability can typically begin around year 7-8, with full payback of establishment costs between years 10-12. However, this requires about 12 years before the orchard provides a livelihood, so farmers need other income sources during those years.

What about land access costs?

Land access is one of the biggest barriers to viable agroforestry. We started out using revenue-sharing leases, and eventually raised some equity investment to buy land. We are happy to share boilerplates for revenue-sharing leases with interested farmers. Given that most farmers who wish to adopt agroforestry practices can’t afford to buy land, we see long-term, low-interest financing as essential for increasing agroforestry adoption.

What are typical establishment costs?

Establishment costs vary significantly based on scale and approach:

  • Trees: $6-50 per tree (we recommend $8-20 range for quality genetics)

  • Tree protection: $6.50-15 per tree (Plantra tubes at $8.50 recommended)

  • Paper weed mats: $2.50-6 per tree (optional but effective)

  • Site preparation: Minimal (hand layout) to $200-300 per acre (mechanical)

  • Labor: 55% of costs if hired, zero if self-performed

Pest and Disease Management

How do you manage pests organically?

We take a whole-systems approach to pest management, focusing on:

  • Diverse plantings (including understory species) to reduce pest pressure

  • Regular scouting and maintaining tree vigor

  • Six-foot tree tubes and pruning to six feet for deer protection

  • Mowing around crop trees at least twice per season while leaving tall vegetation in alleys (to divert rodents away from crop trees)

  • Localized, organic sprays (like BT) only when severe beetle or caterpillar pressure threatens young trees

What about weevil management?

Chestnut weevils are a significant challenge for organic production. Our integrated approach includes:

  • Frequent harvesting (ideally daily) during season

  • ASAP hot water treatment (120°F for ~20 minutes)

  • Good cleanup in harvest areas after harvest season

  • Proper cold storage to halt development

  • Diverse ground covers that typically have lower weevil pressure

How effective is your pest management?

With consistent mowing management, we've reduced vole damage to less than 2% of trees in multi-thousand tree orchards. Our tree tubes have been highly effective for deer protection, and we’re finding that diverse groundcover with many forbs significantly reduce Japanese beetle pressure compared to grass-dominated systems.

Working with Breadtree

Do you offer technical assistance?

Through our USDA grant program, we provide technical support including:

  • One-on-one consultations for current and aspiring chestnut growers

  • Webinars and educational workshops

  • Farmer field days and volunteer planting opportunities

  • Access to our financial modeling tools

Sign-up for webinars and ongoing information is available here.

Sign-up for 1:1 consultations is here. To get the most value out of these calls, we encourage new prospective growers to do as much research as they can before signing up for one of these. Try to use this call to inform site design / operations planning questions rather than answering basic FAQs that you can answer on the web. 

Can you provide trees and supplies?

We grow trees for our own projects, and sometimes have limited quantities of chestnut trees available for local customers. We also recommend people purchase from our nursery partners, Yellowbud Farm. We also offer bulk pricing on tree tubes and paper weed mats to help other farmers access better prices than retail. If you’re interested in this, get in touch.

What about chestnut processing services?

We want to help build a viable regional chestnut industry by lowering barriers-to-entry for other growers. Our facility is designed to serve the entire Northeast region, not just our own production. We expect the facility to be operational starting Autumn 2027.

How can I get involved?