Grafting
Grafting is the fusion of genetic material of two compatible trees — the industry standard for replicating strong performers with desirable genetic traits.
Although we are a seedling first organization, we do offer a limited number of grafted, cloned, root cut, and layered trees each year.
For chestnut orcharding in particular, grafting is often recommended.
As the University of Michigan Extension highlights,
However, there is debate over whether grafted chestnuts are in fact superior.“All commercial chestnut orchards should be established with cultivars that have been selected by horticulturalists for superior qualities.
These cultivars are not produced through seed but are cloned by grafting or budding onto seedlings that will support the chosen cultivar.
In this manner, a single tree with beneficial traits can be copied millions of times by simply cutting small branches from the chosen tree and attaching it onto the stem of planted seedlings.
Conversely, seedlings are the result of sexual recombination between a known mother tree and an unknown father, resulting in endless variability and unreliable characteristics making them suboptimal for commercial production.”
From the same article as highlighted above;
“The grafted trees all produced some nuts in the second and third years after planting (1996-97), while seedling lineages produced only a few nuts in those early years.
From the fourth year onward, both grafted and seedling trees have produced a marketable crop of nuts annually.
Surprisingly, seedlings of ‘Grimo 142Q’ produced more nuts per tree than their grafted parent cultivar.”
The debate over grafting and seedling production is still unresolved with strong arguments on both sides.