Hundreds of baby chestnut seedlings have germinated and are putting on lush growth in nursery beds and pots on Orcas Island, Washington. These young trees are being propagated from seed, and will spend all of 2014 growing and getting thick enough to be grafted to selected varieties in the spring of 2015. Starting in 2016, these trees will be robust enough to transplant out of the nursery and into orchards.

The goal of this project is to encourage landowners, farmers, and ranchers to incorporate functional tree crops into their land management practices. Tree crops benefit all elements of land management- from the environmental angle: erosion control and carbon uptake, to the business angle: crop diversification/resiliency and reduction of dependence on grain based animal feeds. Sponsored by a grant from Nutiva, these chestnut trees will be distributed to ranchers, farmers, and landowners on the West Coast with consultation and establishment support.

With fiscal support from Nutiva and project sponsorship from the Greenhorns, James Most and Sara Joy Palmer are leasing a site on Orcas Island for the chestnut nursery and are currently propagating hundred of trees. In addition to propagating trees, James and Sara Joy have begun reaching out to potential landowners on the West Coast to site future chestnut orchards. Just this spring, they installed a 2 acre chestnut, walnut, and apple orchard for a landowner and organic farmer on Orcas Island.

How to find out more and get involved:

Contact James at [email protected] to find out more about the progress of the project and to talk all things chestnuts.