Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

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Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby George Collins » Mon Sep 10, 2012 9:56 pm

I have a close friend about to graduate from Marine Corps boot camp which is on Parris Island in South Carolina. Having not seen the place since August of 1986, and to show support for my young friend, the family and I are road tripping that way. We will leave on Thursday, Seltember 13th to be there for the graduation ceremony to be held on the 14th. We will visit with my friend and his family (we are all very close) for the remainder of the day.

On Saturday, we will part company and continue on northward. We plant to visit Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm either Monday/Tuesday or Tuesday/wednesday. I plan on asking lots of questions, taking many notes and filling up the iPhone's memory with pictures and video.

After our tour of Polyface, we will next go to a town in VA, the name of which escapes me at present, and participate in the harvest of pure American chestnuts as part of an act of service to The American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation of which I'm a member as of last year. In return for our labor, we will be given enough American Chesnut seed to fill up "a dog food sack." That sounds like more than it probably is as they will still be in the bur.

Once the harvest is over, we will head back Mississippi way and stop by DeKalb, MS to make a large purchase of corn meal that is still ground via a water-powered mill that was established in the year 1790. The name of the mill is Sciples Mill and you do an Internet search using their name and learn more about them. And if ya ain't never had corn bread made outta fresh ground corn meal, let me tell ya, it don't taste nuttin like that store-bought junk.

After returning home and resting for only one night, I will then road-trip-it with Youngblood to Rayville, LA to purchase Madona and Paris Hilton - my cute little Berkshire porkettes.

I hope to use this thread to blog the trip and pass along any good permaculturally type stuff I learn.
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:44 pm

Sounds like a Great trip George. I am sure that your family will enjoy the Graduation, as well as the visit with your good friend. Please take alot of pictures to share. Stone ground flower and corn meal are great, make sure you buy enough for your large family to enjoy for awhile. Enjoy the time away and recharge your batteries. I have looked into the Chestnut group. They think they might have a tree that will be blight resistive and yet taste like the american nut and be the right size. It will take 15 to 20 years to be sure. What trees are you getting the nuts from? There are a few American Chestnut trees that were missed by the blight, and they are still producing nuts. There is one in the Game Lands near my hunting camp. Mussers Nursery sells trees from nuts of a tree from the midwest I think. Unfortunately their trees seem to grow for 20 years, produce nuts, and then start to show signs of blight.
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby boo » Tue Sep 11, 2012 1:05 pm

Looking forward to your posts and photo's. Enjoy the trip and the graduation ceremony. I hear good things about the Marines - I wish your friend well in his chosen career.
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby George Collins » Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:07 am

Thanks boo

Guy, There are at least two groups that I know of that are working towards blight-resistant American chestnuts:
1.  The American Chestnut Foundation
2.  The American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation

The former has sought to achieve blight resistance by crossing American chestnuts with Chinese stock and then back crossing to American stock for some generations until ultimately, they achieve a tree that is pure American but for one characteristic. That one characteristic being blight resistance. 

The ACCF is using pure, naturally occuring blight resistant American stock in its program.

The second of these groups is the one I belong to. 

The ACF introduced their "Restoration Nut" in 2007 which is, in theory, 99.99% blight resistant. And if you join The ACF (and I hope to) for $300.00, they MIGHT send you TWO of their chestnut seeds.  Which if they both grow and are in fact blight resistant and can pass that blight resistance on to their offspring, then $300 might be a very inexpensive price to pay for a future chestnut grove. Currently, chestnut is priced like black walnut. 

I have been interested in chestnuts since at least before Y2K. Considering their potential productivity, if a man had an acre of chestnuts, that'd make a fine addition to a hog food forest. I've HEARD reports that a mature chestnut can produce one TON of mast.  Doing that math has certainly given impetus to some materially greater interest. 
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"

"If you can't beat them, bite them."
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby matt walker » Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:40 am

Sounds like a good trip George. I'll be interested on your take on Polyface Farms. There certainly are a lot of varying viewpoints on his operation, it will be enlightening to hear what you think. I'm not too familiar with chestnuts, not sure if we have them here. A ton of mast is a great reason to take an interest though! That would make some amazing pork, I'm sure.
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby George Collins » Wed Sep 12, 2012 3:34 am

Matt, the historical range of the American chestnut was east of the Mississippi River. Since there are so few that remain after the blight struck them all-but extinct, the chances of you having ever come across one are remote in the extreme.

However, even though not as productive, there are cultivars of blight resistant chestnuts that are extremely productive in comparison to other nut-bearing trees. The most attractive feature of a chestnut though when compared to other nut producing trees is their consistency. They don't bloom until May and so avoid all possibility of crop failure secondary to late frosts. I've personally never seen a chestnut tree miss regardless of its parentage. They ALWAYS bear and they always bear HEAVILY.

An acre of Dunstan Chestnuts (the cultivar we've planted) reportedly produces about 2-tons per acre or ~ 50% of the tonnage one could expect from planting a monocrop of corn. Which of course turns out to be dang nigh infinitely more productive from an input to output ratio since with tree crops the inputs are so incredibly low.

Another advantage to Chestnuts is their precocious nature. Oaks usually take 20 years to even start producing. Chestnuts start in like 4-5 years. So happens that chestnuts start falling (least 'round my neck o'th woods) right after pears and sawtooth oaks start playing out but before the main, native mast crops start. Right now, sawtooth oaks and pears are all but gone, chestnuts are on the downhill slide and water oaks, red oaks and live oaks are just getting started. Today in fact, I moved my one intact male hog to a pen separate from the others and under two ~30 year old live oaks. He is my test hog - an intact male fattened on pears, acorns, chestnuts and table scraps and finished on acorns. The others are on pears and as of today, corn.

I am eager to perform the taste test.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"

"If you can't beat them, bite them."
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Wed Sep 12, 2012 12:17 pm

I have looked into chestnuts George and have several friends who have tried to plant American Chestnuts hopeing to get a blight resistive variety. I love chestnuts, and the American nut is much sweeter than the Chineese. So far it seems that the Chineese Chestnut grows well, arBlight resistant, and bears well. The cross breeds of American and Chineese have come a long way and have about 90% of the size and taste if the american nut with some of the blight resitance of the chineese. A true American Chestnut variety that is blight resitant may be growing now, but it will take them 15 to 20 years to prove it. The blight does not show its effects on the trees for that long. I believe they are on their 4th or 5th breeding cross of the 2 nut varietys. The trees that I have seen around here will grow, and grow well for about 20 years befor they show the effects of the blight. As a young boy I can remember walking in the woods and seeing the very large rotting stumps of the American Chestnuts that had died around the turn of the last century. I am thinking about planting a variety of the chineese chestnut because it is blight resitant. You do need 2 trees, a male and a female. Look at the nuts befor you plant them and you can tell the difference in the nuts, one will be concave, the other will be convex on the inside of the nut. Since you are getting a large bag of nuts for your work I am guessing that you plan on planting them all like you did with the walnuts. That is why I asked which trees, or cross breed of trees your nuts would be coming from. If it is the last cross breed that they hope will be totally blight resistive you have a real prize. If it is one of the earlier cross breeds you may get some nuts but the trees will eventually show the blight and die after about 20 years. Still a worth while experiment, but not as long lasting as some of the plans you have made for your place. You could sell pairs of growing chestnut trees, there are alot of nurserys around here that do just that. I have thought about planting a Chineese Chestnut on either side of the mine opening below the wall, I think it will get enough light and would grow into a nice canopy over the walkway, and the nuts are pretty tasty, especially roasted. ;) .
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby George Collins » Fri Sep 14, 2012 9:23 pm

Image

Phase one is complete. My friend graduated from Parris Island today as a Marine. The ceremony was held between 9:00 and 10:00 this morning. During the ceremony, two young Marines fainted from locking their knees out while standing at attention. Afterwards, two of our mutual friends who are also marines joined in for a just-Marine photo in front of the Iwo Jima memorial.

Today is the first time I've been on Parris Island since August, 1986. Kinda neat going back home after all these years.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"

"If you can't beat them, bite them."
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Fri Sep 14, 2012 10:05 pm

Nice photo George. Your friend looks like a fine Marine. I have a number of my friends who were or are Marines. One is a General in Okanowa who plans on retiring next year. That monument is special to me, my Dad was on Iwo, army air corp at the time. He ran the radar units at Andrews Field guiding the Plains coming back from Japan. He never talked about it much. They were still shooting at you when he got there, but the whole reason for us to take that Island was for the air field. So he was at the most secure spot on the Island after he got there.
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Re: Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

Postby matt walker » Fri Sep 14, 2012 11:31 pm

Good looking crew there George, my thanks to all of you for your service.

I didn't know about the locked knees thing! Kinda explains some weird moments of light headedness I've experienced in the past.
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