David English, President, Chestnut Growers of America and Florida chestnut grower
12/22/16 Lansing State Journal “Checking out chestnuts”
“Michigan is the explosive center of chestnut growth in the country right now.”
wishes all of you a
Happy New Year
and may your lives and orchards flourish in 2017 and ever after
(remember, some of you are planting trees that will live 200 years or more)
“Michigan is the explosive center of chestnut growth in the country right now.” How did this happen?
IT HAPPENED BECAUSE:
1. Because we use science-based results from:
1.1. Field plots around the state, growers’ orchards, and information gathered from other states and countries;
1.2. Experiments to determine the cause of internal kernel breakdown (IKB) and COS does everything to prevent this from ever becoming a problem in your orchard;
1.3. Experiments which found a material for storage rots;
1.4. Field plots and growers’ orchards to find when the flowers are pollinized in Michigan;
1.5. Nature to determine how the biological control of chestnut blight worked in Michigan American chestnut stands surviving chestnut blight which is being used by MSU and COS for managing chestnut blight in Michigan orchards; and
1.6. Experiments to determine which cultivars yield best year in and year out and publish those yields for discussion.
2. Because we started Chestnut Orchard Solutions to help investors and growers:
2.1. Get started in chestnut culture;
2.2. Yes, you can do it yourself with the MSU website www.chestnuts.msu.edu, but since we wrote most of that we know how hard it is to do it by yourself;
2.3. Obtain all of the best information from that website that you can and then COS offers you in-depth explanations and we’ll even do the work for you;
2.4. Find the easy way for orchard establishment; and
2.5. harvest their chestnuts as we harvested about 1/3 of the record harvest in 2016 with the self-propelled harvester and by nut wizard.
3. Because we found cultivars of chestnut that work hard for your profits:
3.1. ‘Colossal’, an outstanding yield leader with large nuts;
3.2. ‘Bouche de Betizac’, because we knew someone would bring in the Asian Chestnut Gall Wasp (ACGW) and we are ready with the only resistant cultivar available; and,
3.3. New generation cultivars with superior winter survival such as ‘Marigoule’.
4. Because we have found a nursery to work with us:
4.1. Forrest Keeling Nursery grafts our selected cultivars;
4.2. They will have delivered 6,000 trees for Michigan for fall and spring planting;
4.3. In 2016, we toured a farm that purchased trees from FKN and another un-named nursery and we showed you the stand establishment differences (99% versus 30% stand establishment)
4.4. FKN brings the trees to Michigan for you to pick or for COS to deliver them to your farm.
4.5. FKN listens closely to MSU growers and watches yields and provides the trees that grow and yield best for us; and,
4.6. They only sell Michigan trees to Michigan growers.
5. Because we have confidence developed from:
5.1. Michigan being one of 2 states whose Land Grant University Extension Educators work on your behalf in integrated pest management (IPM) where you can find answers to your pest and pesticide issues;
5.2. Michigan being the only state that provides a COST of PRODUCTION software tool stating the way to make profits and how much profit might be made; and
5.3. Michigan being the only state with public chestnut cultivar trials in more than 4 locations.
Potato Leaf Hopper-IPM Programs from Extention Educator Erin Lizortte
- Because we started a cooperative where:
6.1. MSU extension value-added educator, Tom Kalchik, helped growers develop the single most important marketing tool, the cooperative;
6.2. Roger Blackwell and the CGI board of directors have worked to maintain the financial health of the cooperative;
6.3. Customers can find chestnut products at the best prices;
6.4. technicians maintain the quality of the chestnuts during storage; and
6.5. the sophisticated equipment helps grade the sizes and types of chestnuts to meet the customers needs.
This website is setup as a post, thus do not hesitate to scroll down to see previous posts. These previous COS website posts include what COS has been involved with in a year (2016). Enjoy!