Growing the Northeast chestnut economy

Russell Wallack of Breadtree Farms and Brian Caldwell of Hemlock Grove Farm discussed commercial organic chestnut production, marketing and processing as an outreach of their Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP) mentorship.

The U.S. imports millions of pounds of chestnuts annually; Wallack and Caldwell are rising to the challenge of meeting this demand domestically.

Wallack and his parents planted their first chestnuts into conventional hayfields in 2019. The farm now spans 800 acres across two states – the upper Hudson Valley of New York and southwest Vermont – with 11 people working full-time. They steward over 20,000 organic perennial food-producing trees and shrubs including chestnuts, hickory, oak, seaberry, apple, pear, mulberry and persimmon.

Hemlock Grove is located in West Danby, NY. Caldwell, who has been farming since the 1970s, grows two acres of chestnuts, an acre of hazelnuts, an acre of apples and pears and some minor fruit crops including persimmons and pawpaws. He also sells nursery stock.

Planting & Yield

Wallack and Caldwell advise planting seedlings rather than grafted trees but note that good genetics are important. Their chestnut plantings contain European, Chinese, Japanese and American genetics, but Chinese genetics, which are noted for their superior nut quality and processing characteristics, dominate their orchards.

Caldwell’s planting strategy is to double what he thinks will be his final spacing with the expectation that half of the trees will be culled. He aims for a final spacing of 30-by-25 feet.

“The point of the whole thing is to plant at a more dense population of trees than what you’re really shooting for. That allows you to cull out trees that are inferior,” Caldwell said.

In Breadtree’s earlier plantings, they used a 13-foot in-row spacing with 40-foot alleys, resulting in about 80 trees/acre. This density, however, is forcing them to make culling decisions early on due to their vigorous lateral growth. Current plantings provide more space – at least 16- to 20-foot in-row spacing to give more time before needing to make culling decisions.

Caldwell advocated for deer fencing. He said, “If you can afford it, it’s great to just put your deer fence in right at the beginning.” He noted the perimeter fencing can be dual purpose for farms, like Breadtree, which is integrating sheep and beef into some of their chestnut orchards.

Yield data for chestnut production, especially in the Northeast, is inconclusive, according to Wallack. “There is a quite wide array of what people will communicate as mature yields in chestnut orchards,” he said.

Wallack is fairly conservative in his modeling, and while some Michigan growers have had bumper crop years, with 6,000 lbs./acre, he thinks 1,000 – 2,000 lbs./acre is a more reasonable target for organic growers in the Northeast, especially for those without irrigation like Breadtree and Hemlock Grove.

Marketing

With only two acres of chestnut production, Caldwell sells most of his chestnuts locally to natural food stores. A nearby apple orchard which offers a CSA program offers them as an add-on.

Breadtree’s chestnut plantings have not come into full fruition, but they still produce a marketable crop. Direct-to-consumer is their main channel, with almost all of their approximately 4,000 lbs. sold this year sold through their website. 2025 marked their first year of participating at a farmers market. They sold far more chestnut flour – currently being purchased from an Ohio chestnut farm – than fresh nuts, with flour representing over 60% of market sales compared to under 30% for fresh nuts.

Chestnut flour is gluten-free and venerated by bakers. Caldwell said, “Cookies and pastries made with chestnut flour are really superior.”

Breadtree also sells to regional restaurants, who Wallack said have “overwhelming interest” in chestnuts. Some have ordered 50 – 100 lbs. at $9 – $10/lb. Wallack cautioned that this market may not be large enough if every regional farmer tried to compete at this price point.

Processing

In spring 2026, Breadtree will break ground on an organic processing facility at their home farm in Salem, NY. The project was funded in part by a $1.9 million USDA Organic Market Development grant. The facility will eventually process chestnuts into flour not just for Breadtree but for other chestnut growers.

The facility will have an annual throughput capacity of about 800,000 lbs. of fresh nuts, and 100,000 – 150,000 lbs. of flour.

Currently, the entire U.S. produces under 10,000 lbs. of chestnut flour across all small-scale growers, and the largest existing processing facilities handle 100,000 – 200,000 lbs. but are not certified organic.

Wallack and Caldwell see flour as essential for market expansion, with Wallack noting there’s already enough chestnuts planted over the past 10 years in the U.S. to saturate the current fresh nut market. This makes building a gluten-free chestnut flour industry crucial for any grower investing in growing chestnuts.

by Sonja Heyck-Merlin