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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-547
Japanese Chestnut
Castanea crenata
Japanese chestnut is grown mainly for what it passes on rather than what it yields itself: it carries strong resistance to ink disease, a root pathogen that European chestnut has little defence against, which makes it a released rootstock and a breeding parent for disease-resistant chestnut hybrids. Its own nut is honest but unremarkable - edible and useful as a starch staple, though the flavour is rated very poor and the nut coarse - and it bears unusually early, fruiting while still just three metres tall. It also tolerates a wider range of summer climates than European chestnut, doing better in cool, humid summers that leave the European species undersized.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–8
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 6–7
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 30–40 ft
- Mature spread
- 30–40 ft
- Plant spacing
- 35–40 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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