> I found some American chestnut trees on-line at www.tytyga.com the
> website claims the following:
>
> 'A reportedly blight resistant hardy, native chestnut stand was
> recently discovered growing in a very isolated location in a U.S.
> National Park. These trees produce large, honey sweet kernels of
> unexcelled taste and quality. Ty Ty will offer these rare trees now.
> Zones 3-9'

Hi, James,
I'm not claiming to be an expert, but ... looking at the pictures on the
website (http://www.tytyga.com/chestnuts/americanpg12.htm) they seem to be
Asian crosses. I'm going by the size of the nuts, which are totally
out-sized for Americans, and the appearance of the leaves. I can only get
an impression of these, but they look like leathery hybrid leaves, lacking
points. They may be good nut trees, but I'm pretty sure looking at them
that they aren't more than half American; if I'm right, what a shame that
they're selling them as pure American.

I suggest you consider getting some nuts or seedlings from the American
Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation - www.accf-online.org. They are the only
group working to create a 100% American blight resistant chestnut, and are
deserving of your help and support if you are interested in growing and
restoring American Chestnut. (The other, better known group working on
chestnut restoration is the American Chestnut Foundation, which uses Asian
crosses and then repeated crosses back to the American. This is also a
worthy project, though I'm personally inclined to prerer the ACCF approach.
I'm not sure whether TACF is distributing resistant stock yet.) If you get
stock from ACCF, you can help with restoration work. The downside is that
you have to start a larger number of seedlings to end up with a couple of
naturally blight-resistant trees. However, if you think you might be able
to manage grafting, some of the non-resistant ones that survive can be used
as root stock.

> I'm really interested in getting some of these and see if I can get
> them to grow. I'm wondering what to expect. They offer 1 yr and 2
> yr old trees. How old do they normally have to be before they
> will bear chestnuts? I saw on the website that they are not self
> pollinating so I'll need at least 2 trees, but I'm not sure how many
> I'll end up with yet.

American chestnuts are very fast growing. I think that in good growing
conditions they can start flowering in 6-7 years from nuts. I think this
is faster than other chestnuts, as they seem to be slower growing - but I
don't have any personal experience with these.

Good luck! I hope you'll write us about what you decide to do.
Jill in NJ