North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Hans Brinkmann <hans-brinkmann@t-online.de>]

Hallo Donna,
even for me, it was surprisingly. I was going to collect some nuts from 
that mentioned Chestnut "Ecker I"
and I have been surprised positively about the very, very soft burs! I 
used only my fingers to remove the nuts.
Never I will do it with other Chestnuts. Really soft. This "Ecker I" is 
not considered as a Hybrid - I think.
The grows is slowly and small, it is very cold hardy and the fruits are 
not very large.
More and more we use very resistant C. sativa x crenata Hybrids. Having 
not this soft burs...
In general Europeans are afraid to plant Castanea in their (small) 
gardens, because of the possible
large size of the tree. If they plant them, they do it usually not very 
close to the house.
From my experience, Americans are not so much afraid of large trees 
close by their houses.
In the contrary, I think Americans are loving large trees near by their 
houses. Because of shade, protection and
esthetically  reasons .  Germans do love their houses first, without 
planting dangerous close  trees...

I have no knowledge about the possible allergic reaction of Castanea pollen.
But I think, in the contrary to Europe, you have some areas in the USA 
with many Castanea trees...
I hope and believe, people could become adopted...
Castanea pollen is/was sometimes used to increase the amount of Kaki 
fruits in Kaki plantations.
Without increasing the amounts of seeds in the fruits.

By the way, the flower with the most (none allergic) pollen seeds, is 
the wonderful Chinese Peony flower.
3,5 Million pollen seeds per flower. Tree Peony like suffruticosa and 
rockii..

ciao
Hans


Donna &/or Kieran schrieb:
> Hans,
>      It's hard to imagine soft chestnut burs.  Is this some chance mutation, 
> or some other species?  If I have to get nuts out of the burs, I step on 
> either side of the bur with my shoes to open it and pull the nuts out by the 
> little string on the end.  Most people here with chestnuts in their backyard 
> will rake up the burs in the fall and burn them.  My grandparents did this 
> every year for their two spanish chestnuts, searching to get every bur.  And 
> still, when we children would come to visit and run around barefooted, one 
> of us would always step on an old bur.  The spikes break off under the skin, 
> I can remember lying on the couch crying while my father dug the prickles 
> out of my foot.
>      I pity our dogs for the burs to come, our 4 chinese chestnuts cropped 
> for the first time last year, and I've planted Japanese and American crosses 
> this past year.  But we wonder if we react to the pollen.  I felt terrible 
> every spring we lived in town with a chestnut tree in the neighbors' yard, 
> but also a huge male mulberry in our own yard.  Someone said it was probably 
> the mulberry, but I know that in Europe chestnut pollen is taken more 
> seriously as an allergen.  If it proves to be the chestnut pollen, I don't 
> know what we will do.  Take a vacation every spring while they bloom?  I 
> think that when the forests here were 40% chestnut, life must have been hard 
> for those who reacted to the pollen.     Donna
>  
>
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