Fresh or roasted chestnuts are sweet and nutritious snacks. Chestnuts in stuffing, casseroles, or as vegetables are popular. The nuts can be dried and ground into a flour that is used in cooking. Chestnut production is increasing rapidly in the U.S. and will continue to do so in response to the large imports of this crop. Growers in the Great Lakes region have planted more than 200,000 chestnut trees over the past five years, with the first nut harvest in 1990.
Projections are for a million pound crop by the end of the decade.
There is a shortage of chestnuts on the market, and many markets are not being supplied now. It is obvious that the potential for commercialization in the Midwest is tremendous. Pawpaw has potential both as a fruit crop and as a source of natural botanical insecticides and anti-cancer agents, based on research conducted by J.L. McLaughlin, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at Purdue University. The bark of pawpaw has been shown to contain biologically active compounds that may have commercial potential. Studies are underway at Purdue's New Crop Center by Bruce Bordelon, J.E. Simon, and Jules Janick to develop methods to produce renewable sources of pawpaw biomass.