Qing

BRIEF:
A yard tree found in Hickory, Kentucky, and now the benchmark every other American chestnut is measured against. Exceptionally sweet, early dropping, and stores well.

DETAILED:
Qing began as an ordinary yard tree in Hickory, Kentucky, planted some time around 1960 by someone whose name we do not know. Michael Nave named it in 1998, Greg Miller propagated it, and it has since become the standard against which other American chestnuts are judged. The original tree is still there, still bearing heavy crops.

The nuts are medium-large, shiny and dark, and exceptionally sweet — sweeter than most Chinese chestnuts grown in this country. They store unusually well and rarely carry the multiple embryos that spoil a nut's shape. Like most heavy-bearing lines, Qing trends toward smaller nuts as the tree matures and the crop load builds — downward sizeshift, in the shorthand we use for it.

The tree has a habit we particularly value here. It breaks bud late, which gave it the best spring-frost avoidance of anything in the Missouri trials — useful on a farm with low ground where cold air settles.

Qing is not a pure Chinese chestnut. It carries Allegheny chinquapin in its parentage, which is very likely where the sweetness comes from.

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