Sweet chestnuts are an example of other orchard commodities showing some success. In orchards, sweet chestnuts are produced on cold-hardy selections of Japanese and Chinese cultivars and from hybrid crosses of American and Chinese chestnuts.
Chinese chestnuts fall to the ground when ripe.
Burrs usually split open just prior to drop and contain one to three large chestnuts each. Good cross-pollination helps to increase the number of nuts per burr. Native American sweet chestnut, the forest tree, is not recommended in managed orchards because it is still highly susceptible to chestnut blight disease. Nut growers have learned that chestnut blight is still very active in Ontario and is just as lethal to native sweet chestnut now as it was decades ago. There is one American cultivar named 'Kelly' that is a bit tolerant to chestnut blight but will eventually succumb to the disease.