WC

BRIEF:
A probable sibling of Qing from the old TVA program, on a bigger, more vigorous tree. One of the two best keepers in storage testing, and named for the man who grew it out.

DETAILED:
W.C. is short for W. C. Donoho, a member of the Kentucky Nut Growers Association in Louisville who grew this tree out from Tennessee material. The name is simply his initials, which is how a good many chestnuts got named before anyone was keeping careful records.

Michael Nave suspects W.C. is a sibling of Qing, and possibly of Mossbarger as well, with all three tracing back to the old Tennessee Valley Authority chestnut breeding and distribution program. That program put trees into yards and farms across the region decades ago, and a handful of the best chestnuts grown in America today are the ones somebody noticed and saved. Nobody has confirmed the relationship with DNA yet, so it stands as a well-informed suspicion rather than a fact.

The nuts are very similar to Qing and carry the same high sweetness, but the tree itself is larger and more vigorous. Like Qing, it is not a pure Chinese chestnut — it carries Allegheny chinquapin, which is where that sweetness likely comes from.

What caught our attention is storage. When Greg Miller stored nuts from dozens of cultivars, Liu came out best for resistance to blossom end rot and storage rots, and after a year's observation W.C. was the next one he named. We grow both.

It is also genuinely scarce. Nave lists W.C. among trees he rates highly but has not written up, simply because there is no consistent source for wood or nuts anywhere. You will not find it in a nursery catalog.

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