Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa
Sweet chestnut (Castanea spp) for food and timber in the Baltic Sea region
Private chestnut introduction project to obtain Northern Europe climate-adapted cultivars for nut and timber production. Project first stage is to create a chestnut genetic pool from seedlings from the most similar climate conditions available. Seedlings are planted in several locations to test their climate adaptation and deer resistance
Project progress
2019 first chestnuts are foraged in southern and middle Sweden
2020 established nursery
2021 first seedlings were planted in the field and various forest conditions
2023 more trees were planted in the forest and fields (Latvia)
2024 May, the tallest chestnut in the forest reaches 2m in height
2025 October, after cutting small stands of Alnus incana, chestnuts were planted in the forest.
2025 autumn, the tallest chestnut in the forest reaches about 4m tall and gets the name Timber 1..
Sweet chestnut (Castanea spp) in Latvia, a short story
During the walnut inventory, we also found some chestnut trees. The oldest trees are from the 1960s. In most cases, they are healthy, solitary trees, flowering but not nut-bearing, most probably due to a lack of pollination. For some trees, we have information about their origin.
For example, a few tree groups in Baldone municipality were direct-seeded in the 1980s, as one enthusiastic lady brought chestnuts from the Black Sea town of Gelendzhik. Today, there are four excellent chestnut trees and a few self-seeded ones in the forest nearby.