After seeing a post on here about chestnuts, I thought I would get some and see if they would grow. I ordered some off e-bay and all it said was chestnuts for a type. They are coming out of MN and I got to wondering about the type they were. So I start reading and find out that horse / buckeye chestnuts are poisonous. Are they poisonous to wildlife and live stock? Can any one tell me the type these are? I ask the seller and they say the tree in in the yard of what was their grandparents and has been there as long as they can remember.

The color of those look more like buckeyes than chestnuts. I had a decent crop of nuts this year, although they were all different sizes. My trees are Chinese chestnuts, not American chestnuts, but the nuts look more like an acorn, and the cap is a woolly thing that covers the top to close to a third of the way down the nut. Where as the buckeye has a covering, more like a walnut or hickory has, but there will be two nuts in it. That right there would be the key to knowing for sure what they are. From the color and the scar on the nut, me thinks those are buckeyes, Mark. Don’t eat buckeyes!

Those look to be buckeyes or horse chestnuts. If the nut is rounded they are not chestnuts. A chestnut will have a point at the end of the nut.

I just ordered 50 Chestnuts to plant. $14.00 shipped.

But they do need to be chilled in the fridge for 2-3 months before planting.

But what kind are they? I don't really want to plant poison chestnuts Where livestock has access to them if they will kill the live stock.

Look like buckeyes to me.

" Chestnuts roasting over an open fire, Jack frost nipping at your nose"

As said, don't look like a chestnut at all to me. I don't know what kind the trees are at my parent's but they are delicious. They've been there probably 30 years or so and have nuts pretty much every year, differ in size sometimes. They are super easy to grow from the nut. Just shove them in a pot just coving the nut. Can't leave them in the pot very long, vicious tap root wll find it's way out the weep holes and into the ground by year 2. I'm wanting to speed up the process a bit and am looking to buy some this spring that are already a couple years old.

Mine are Chinese. I won't ship them due to the worms, especially bad this past season.
Maybe your Ag extension can ID yours.

Following but confused

Their HORSE Chestnuts.

When I ordered them I did not know that Buckeyes / horse chestnuts were poison. From what I can see, they look like buckeyes / horse chestnuts. For those of you that have buckeyes do the squirrels eat them? I have been told by the seller they do.

Squirrels can eat them as they are somewhat resistant to the toxins in buckeyes and horse chestnuts, but they have to have nothing else available. Even for squirrels they are basically a food of last resort.

Thanks Anthony T. My guess is they won't grow here anyway. There is a reason it is the great plains, not the great forest. I am much closer to zone 2, then zone 4.

Mark, they may grow. The major reason the plains had no trees was due to lightning/fires... We tend to not let wildfires rage out of control anymore.

Mike

I have planted 100's of trees here at the house and very few have lived. The soil is poor, the wind is bad, freezing rain breaks them off, Snow drifting in breaks them off. I have never had a fire here and I am sure less than 10% of the tree I plant live. Those are the ones I water too. I thought I would try them, since I never have.

Buckeyes, just a worthless nut.

look like buckeyes to me...I had one in my yard at the last house

When I was a kid in SE Wisconsin there were a lot of HORSECHESTNUT trees that yielded Chestnuts identical to those. They had a very spiny husk around them. Never really did much with them except fill our pockets with them and throw them as hard as we could during neighborhood wars. They'd leave a really nice goose egg if you hit somebody in the forehead.

We'd also throw them into the Homecoming bonfire as they'd pop in the flames.

Moosetrot

I fondly remember the violent horse chestnut wars we had as teenagers.

Our horse chestnuts were very spiky and as big as a baseball.