John Greenwood
Conor Dolan holds a handful of chestnuts he harvested on his family’s farm from trees planted by his father 12 years ago. (Photo by / Radish)
Conor Dolan tramps through the fallen leaves of chestnut trees and wears a pair of big leather boots. The time-smoothed boots belong to his dad, who planted these chestnuts 12 years ago, but the trees now are under Conor’s care.
“He was in diapers at the time,” says his father, Dan Dolan, recalling the first seedlings he planted down the gravel road from the family home in rural Muscatine, Iowa. “I loved the idea of planting trees. It made sense.”
Dan learned about sustainable woody agriculture — and the story of the nearly totally lost American chestnut tree — long before environmental news became mainstream national news, he says. Among about 16,000 other trees, Dan planted 2,100 chestnut seedlings from random stock in the hopes that one of his children would see the trees’ value and enjoy working with them. “Seeing him take such an interest in it has been so exciting for me,” he says.
Conor’s older brother, Kevin, 18, a student at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., was not interested in the trees, perhaps because they didn’t bear fruit until a couple years ago. His older sister, Danielle, 16, has no interest in chestnuts, either. But Conor has found that this work — from the physical labor at the tree farm to making interpersonal connections at the Davenport Farmers’ Market, where he sells the nuts — is second nature.
“I think it’s cool,” he says. “The market is a different setting. I like that it’s a different part of the job.”
It doesn’t hurt that his friends like to help out. Dan says it’s not uncommon to hear the boys whooping and hollering as they work in the fields. “There are three teenage boys out here, making noise and having fun,” he says.
After school and weekends, Conor maintains the rows and the trees, which means regular mowing and pruning. Beginning in early September, they harvest.
Chestnuts are gathered from the ground, a job that requires thick leather gloves. The nuts’ needle-covered husks are sharp — “painfully sharp,” says Conor’s mom, Celeste — and sometimes prick the skin through the leather.
“I love the marks they leave on me,” the boy says of the husks. One day while working in the field, he heard a noise from above and looked up. A chestnut fell through the branches and conked him on the cheekbone, just below the eye. It left “a bruise with spots,” he says, clearly pleased.
No, lacerations will not deter a 14-year-old chestnut farmer from his vocation. Especially one who frequently finds himself in 22 acres of woods with a four-wheeler.
Funny thing: sometimes the last chestnuts just won’t fall, so he takes a hands-on approach. “I can still climb the tree and shake it,” he says. The chestnut trees are young, but cared for properly, they can outlive generations — one reason Dan planted them.
Because trees live longer than corn plants, for instance, they’re considered a low-input food crop. You plant chestnut trees once and, with continued care, get food from them for a hundred years or more, he says.
French growers further augment the environmental rewards of the trees by grazing herd animals around them to reduce the need for mowing. To reduce disease, which springs up when chestnuts are left on the ground, French growers also allow hogs to roam the rows after the harvest in search of unseen nuts. Chestnut-finished hogs are considered a delicacy in Europe, Dan explains. He hopes to someday help Conor replicate this European system of symbiotic relationships on their farm.
While today’s American eaters might consider chestnuts a specialty or holiday novelty brought to mind by Nat King Cole, the nuts once fed thousands. In fact, before a Chinese blight wiped out nearly 4 billion chestnuts from Maine to Florida in the early 20th century, the hardwood trees had reigned over 200 million acres of woods, according to The American Chestnut Foundation.
In other countries, however, chestnuts remain a staple. They are China’s third-largest crop after rice and wheat, so Dan knows why the eyes of recent immigrants light up at the sight of chestnuts at the farmers’ market. “They cook with them every day like we cook with potatoes or rice,” he says.
The Dolans sell the raw chestnuts at market from September through the end of October for $3 per pound. What does not sell at market, they sell wholesale. Conor has been practicing roasting chestnuts over a hibachi grill and hopes to provide freshly roasted nuts at the market next year.
“So far, we’ve had burnt chestnuts,” his dad says, beaming.
Want to roast fresh chestnuts?
Teen chestnut grower Conor Dolan of Muscatine, Iowa, shares how he does it indoors at home:
Wash 2 pounds of fresh chestnuts. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and score the flat side of the shell of each nut with an “X.”
Place nuts on a cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, then cool, open and taste one of the nuts. Continue baking nuts to taste, if desired.
Brush melted butter over roasted nuts and sprinkle with salt before serving.
One healthy nut
Chestnuts are cholesterol-free, low in sodium and high in fiber. They also contain small amounts of vitamin C. Chestnuts may be roasted whole or chopped in a small amount of olive oil or butter and added to stuffings, soups, cakes and breads. Puree them with seasonings to make pate, pesto or chestnut butter.
Learn more about chestnuts and their cultivation online at The American Chestnut Foundation’s Web site, www.acf.org.
