Hello chestnut growers and harvesters of the PA-NJ chapter!
Lake Graboski, TACF North Central Regional Science Coordinator is calling on chestnut growers and harvesters to experiment using ‘catch nets’ to harvest chestnuts. This method could improve the ease and safety of harvesting chestnuts in many situations.
“We don’t know how well this will work in PA-NJ because the wildlife is different. Importantly, black bears are not present in Bill’s area. However, if it does work it could greatly increase our safety and reduce damage to our trees caused by trying to pick burrs off the tree before they open.
If you are interested please send me an email at lake.graboski@tacf.org. We request that you make a short report of the effort. The report would include a picture of your set-up, net area, net height above the ground (3-5 feet is recommended), and # of nuts collected. We’d like you to visit the net(s) at least once every 2 days to record the # of nuts collected and any other interesting observations that you deem important.”
September, prior to nut-fall, nets of ¼” mesh smaller are suspended underneath the chestnut trees and a thin layer of leaves is thrown onto them. Indiana chapter member, Bill Deeter, has been using these nets to successfully harvest chestnuts for years.
Here’s a picture of one of his set-ups:
