Thursday, April 17, 2014

Back to Chestnuts - 2014

Much has happened in the last few years, hence the break from the blog.  2013 turned out to be a disaster for chestnut farming.  It was the year of the cicada, and by July, my husband realized that they had done so much damage, that we would loose our crop.  He was 100% correct.

Moving forward, speaking with experienced farmers, the loss may turn out to be good for our crop this year.  When a tree does not have to produce fruit, the energy and nutrients it takes in build up the root structure. So we are hoping for a an extra special crop this year to make up for last year.  I'll be posting photos soon as trees begin to bud and we look for signs of the new crop.

We have continued to add trees to our crop each year, and now have about 1,500 trees on our farm. We have also started a growers group and have a total of 5 chestnut orchards in Nelson County.  2014 is looking good already.

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