← chestnut
rights unknown
Qing
Castanea mollissima
The record
- Parentage
- Castanea mollissima
- Origin
- Western Kentucky, from a yard tree
- Rights
- rights unknown
- Nut
- Large and sweet, with an easy-peel pellicle
- Budbreak
- Late, which helps it dodge spring frost damage
- Pollination
- Needs cross-pollination with a compatible cultivar
Description
A yard tree in western Kentucky that turned out to be one of the best-evaluated cultivars in the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry trials, and a core parent of the reference Peach × Qing × Kohr seed orchard.
The trait that earns it orchard space is the pellicle. The thin skin under the shell is what makes chestnuts tedious to process, and a cultivar that peels cleanly is worth more per pound of labour than one that yields slightly heavier. Late budbreak is the second reason: a variety that waits out the last frost keeps its crop in a year that costs an early one.