Temprate Fruits (1+1)

CULTURAL PRACTICES

Canopy Management:

• The Chinese chestnut form a low headed tree if left unpruned. Unpruned tree start bearing earlier than severely pruned ones.
• Early pruning stimulates vegetative growth. Hence, for early nut production orchard trees should not be pruned for few years.
• An ideal practice is to allow the trees to come into bearing before any pruning is done, then remove only a few of the lowest branches each year until the tree is properly headed. Lower limbs are removed gradually from the tree and the practice is continued.
• The lowest branch should be kept at a height of one meter from the ground and therefore branches should be spaced spirally at a distance of 40 cm from one another.

Nutrition:

• The chestnut trees are mostly planted on eroded upland soils, so it is important to fertilize trees regularly.
• At least ½ kg 15:15:15 NPK mixture per year age of tree should be applied before sprouting or in early spring.
• The full bearing trees should be supplied with 100 kg FYM and 6-8 Kg of NPK mixture during December – January.

Irrigation:

• Well established trees can withstand a moderate amount of drought
• Chestnut is generally grown under rain-fed conditions but needs adequate moisture for at least 2 months after blooming.
• Irrigation at fortnightly intervals after blooming is desirable for better fruit size, yield and nut quality.

Inter culture:

• Row crops such as corn, soyabean or other pulses can be grown between the trees for the first few years.
• Filler trees of stone fruits can be planted for supplementing income in the early years and should be removed later on after chestnut plants start bearing full crops.

Maturity and Harvesting

• The chestnut mature in the first fortnight of October in Himachal conditions.
• The bur colour changes from green to light brownish and split open during maturity releasing the nuts.
• Chestnut are very perishable crop that require prompt harvesting every third days.
• Traditionally, chestnut are hand gathered from ground after falling naturally.
• In USA and other developed countries the chestnut are harvested mechanically by shaking the burs from the trees and using mechanical pick up device together the nuts.
• The harvested chestnuts are treated with fungicides to prevent spoilage. These nuts are then cured for 5 days at 21oC. on an average, the harvest period of each tree is 23 days as maturity is not uniform in chestnuts.

Yield:

• Seedling tree yielded 26 kg of nuts at 12 years of age.

Storage:

• Fresh chestnut contain 40-45per cent carbohydrates, mostly in the form of starch, about 5 per cent oil and about 5 per cent moisture. These are highly perishable because the nuts loose moisture rapidly at room temperature, causing the kernel to become hard and inedible.
• For storage, the moisture of nuts must be less than 10 per cent and relative humidity of storage atmosphere must be 70 per cent or lower and storage temperature must be 0oC or lower.
• Mold on chestnut can be destroyed with hot bath (57.7oC for one hour).
• The best way of drying chestnut is to put them in bags at 4.4oC with well circulated air at 70 per cent relative humidity.
• Under these conditions the nuts will cure and dry to the optimum moisture content.