Updates:

Many of the chestnuts from nuts I harvested in 2021 and transplanted in November 2022 now are producing nuts. Some of those trees are probably about 20' tall. Some still aren't out of the 5' tubes; but most are big and doing very, very well - especially since they've basically been neglected except for the Tree Pro tubes.

Those chestnuts from nuts harvested in 2023 and transplanted in 2024 using the small excavator with 12" diameter 4' auger and 6' tree pro tubes are doing well too. At least one of them is now above the 6' tube and some others are close.

I wound up harvesting 500+ nuts from some of the older trees we have - especially those on the island last fall. Initially trip to gather resulted in by far the most. Although there were many more (probably at least twice as many on the trees), subsequent trips were mostly useless as raccoons seem to have found them and never left much. Although I layered the nuts in sand in buckets like previously, I never got around to burying the buckets in a big dirt pile. And... I never had a single chestnut in the buckets sprout either. Not sure why; but apparently really need to bury them. I need to watch more videos or learn more before this fall.

I did keep seeds from a bunch of apple trees (we have some apple trees we've planted) in the same buckets. Many of those did sprout and grow. In fact, had much better luck getting the apple seeds to sprout in the buckets that way than before. Hmmm... I now have about 35 little apple trees I need to transplant this fall. Will probably plant those in the same area as planted the chestnuts last fall. Will probably buy some 5' tubes for those.

Lessons learned...

I'm firmly convinced that the tubes work very well and are definitely worth the money. The wood stakes didn't work well for us. They are too short, they rot, and they break off. We've gone with a 10' section of inch diameter schedule 40 PVC pipe. You can bury it when planting the tree and still have it extending above enough to provide good support for your trees. What seems to work even better? Driving down about a six feet section of oil field pump rod (basically equivalent to 5/8" smooth rebar) a couple feet into the compacted soil, then sliding the 10' PVC pipe over top of it.

Apparently, you really do need to bury buckets in dirt for overwintering if you want the seeds to sprout.

Also, I had several little walnut trees left in pots last fall that I never got around to planting in dirt. Every single one of those died.

[Linked Image from i108.photobucket.com]