Washingon
Chestnuts
The first chestnut trees arrived in Washington state in the mid 1850s with the arrival of the westward movement of the pioneers. Those first chestnut trees were American seedling brought in covered wagons and planted in the new homesteads. The first commercal chestnut trees in Washington state were planted in the early 1980s. These trees were mostly hybred trees from Italy, France, Portugal, and California. The west coast states were found to provide very good growing conditions for commercial chestnut orchards. Some of the pests like chestnut weevils, chestnut blight, and gall wasps are not present west of the Rocky Mountians.
The growing season in Washington state west of the Cascade Mountians is much cooler than in the central valley of California resulting in sweet tasting chestnuts. Chestnut growers in Western Washington had to find chestnut trees that will produce mature chestnuts in the shorter and cooler growing season. The selection process to find the best producing chestnut trees has taken decades to achieve real commercial viability.
Many challeges are still needing to be addressed such as opening up markets to Washington Chestnuts, building customer awareness of chestnut quality, establishing standards for orchard management, and the design of modern chestnut orchards. Our ongoing research will be addressing these challeges to the benifit of our customers.
Aside from producing a great food, chestnut trees also capture carbon from the atomosphere in a totally natural way. Our orchards annually capture approximatly 9 tons of carbon each growing season. The captured carbon is stored both in the new wood and in the nuts the trees produce every year. As the trees get bigger, so does the amount of captured carbon. And chestnut trees can live for hundreds of years.
We hope year will join us in our service to our local community and to the world community by making our world a better place to live. When you buy Washington Chestnuts you become one of the do good people in our world.
