Custom Chestnut Orchard Installation Services

Thinking about

helping the environment?
earning revenue from idle or underperforming land?
removing abundant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere? or
having your own chestnuts to eat every year?

Improving Our Planet One Chestnut Orchard at a Time

We are farmers and we know trees.

We also have the proper equipment to prepare your future orchard for maximimum production. Our orchard-prepping process offers seedlings an early chance to become over-achievers. We believe our chestnut orchard installation process will out-perform conventionally planted chestnut orchards.

Why are our chestnut orchards so productive? Idaho Panhandle Chestnuts devotes considerable time up front to ensure your chestnut orchard will grow quickly and begin producing flavorful chestnuts within four to seven years. We are confident our process provides treated chestnut orchards a ten percent advantage over conventionally planted orchards.

A ten percent advantage? Is this possible? Yes it is. Imagine planting such a high-performing chestnut orchard. For every ten years' harvest, you will be havesting the same amount or more as a chestnut orchard in an eleven-year-harvest cycle. Furthermore, young chestnut trees bear earlier and heavier when afforded extra loving care in the orchard field preparation process and subsequent years.

If you are interested, please read this resource to learn how Idaho Panhandle Chestnuts prepares future chestnut orchards for success.

Chestnut Orchard Design and Installation

Are you interested in having Idaho Panhandle Chestnuts design and install a chestnut orchard on your property?

Chestnuts offer tremendous value to every property as long as they are properly maintained. We offer chestnut orchard design and installation consultation services. Consultation rates start at $200 hourly. If we are a good fit for you and you wish to proceed, we'll provide alternatives to install your chestnut orchard within your budget.

Paying for Chestnut Ochard Installation Services

Chestnut orchards do not generate attractive profits for the first ten years. In short, your breakeven point is ten years after planting. Landowners must not rely upon their chestnut orchards generating profits to sustain themselves in the eary years. Landowners should have an alternate source of income as they wait for the chestnut trees to mature.

Keep in mind that the United States imports hundreds of millions of dollars worth of chestnuts each year. There is a huge demand for chestnuts. The money will come, but you will need to find a market. Idaho Panhandle Chestnuts wants to help Idaho landowners become wealthier. We know this won't happen overnight and we also know that most Idaho landowners do not have the time or skills to sell their chestnuts.

Additionally, we know most Idaho landowners don't have deep pockets to pay for chestnut orchard installation. I envision that most Idaho landowners turning their idle land into chestnut orchards will be planting in conventional methods. However, these landowners will still need locally sourced chestnut seedlings and a way to sell their excess chestnuts.

Carrying basket with sweet edible chestnuts

Harvesting Chestnuts - Challenges and Solutions

We also envision landowners needing assistance harvesting chestnuts. Many landowners are elderly or have land as an investment property. They will not have the time or equipment to harvest their chestnuts. The majority of chestnut orchards pick nuts manually; however, Idaho Panhandle Chestnuts uses automated processes in favor of Idaho's unreliable seasonal labor force.

Consequently, Idaho Panhandle Chestnuts is organizing the Idaho Chestnut Cooperative in 2024 to overcome the aforementioned challenges.

Many farmers enter co-ops in order to increase their economic market power and exposure. Cooperatives are legal business entities created under state law. Co-ops are owned and managed to benefit landowners using the co-op's services.

The purpose of the Idaho Chestnut Cooperative is to:

educate landowners about chestnut orchard management;
persuade Idaho chestnut orchard owners in maintaining their orchards as organically as possible;
provide chestnut owners with an online marketplace to advertise and sell their products;
bargain on behalf of chestnut orchard landowners; and
share best practices for organic chestnut orchard production.

Joining the Idaho Chestnut Cooperative

As time allows, we will provide more information regarding joining the currently nonexistent "Idaho Chestnut Cooperative."

We hope to establish mutually beneficial relationships with scores of Idaho Panhandle landowners as we improve our environment. Chestnut trees offer many advantages that will be reaped for hundreds of years. Chestnut trees produce every year and can easily reach 500 years old.

There is a bright future for Idaho chestnut orchard landowners.

Idaho Landowners Adopting Chestnut Orchards

I love smelling chestnuts roasting for 30 minutes in the 350 degree oven. Their beautifully golden brown flesh teases the fingers, as I anticipate eating them after resting them for ten minutes in a slightly moistened towel nestled loosely in a large glass mixing bowl. If you attack these sweet nuggets too early, you risk burnt fingers and worse...the blister at the top of the mouth. I speak from experience.

Our objective is to grow lots of chestnuts. So we decided to return to north Idaho and revive the lost chestnut and provide opportunities to our struggling north Idaho communities. Many of our younger generations have to leave Idaho to seek wealth, just as I had. I now return to share opportunity for many small local farmers who may have ten or twenty acres.

Small Landowners' Challenging Position

There are many small farms in Idaho where the landowner allows a local farmer to farm their land. In many cases, the landowner is paid either nothing or very little. These landowners are delighted to have somebody mowing the hay or planting wheat in order to keep the forest from returning.

As most know, ten acres of hay ground or winter wheat is not enough land to sustain a farmer in this modern day of high-tech industrial agriculture. However, a chestnut orchard producing 4,000 pounds annually @ $2.50 to $3.00 per pound offers some interesting opportunities for small farmers.

The problem with the above scenario immediately appears when one considers the local hay or wheat farmer has no long-term vested interest in your land. Consequently, they abuse it miserably. These farmers habitually overwork the land or regularly apply too much nitrogen fertilizer in order to boost short term yields at the expense of the land's long term health.

A keen observer can see many of these fields by looking at Google Maps. The acidic soil appears barren, dried out, lacking vitality evident in lush green healthy enviroments.