Harvesting Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) – ‘‘Judia’’ 5th Oct 2018
We are just harvesting Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) – Judia, today 5th Oct 2018. We have got to beat the squirrels, mind you they do find it tough going with all those spines. Some of the nuts are still a bit white, but they will ripen up.
‘‘Judia’’ is extensively planted in new orchards in Portugal, mainly due to its better fruit size, (60 fruits/kg), good fruit appearance, flat shape, adequate for cooking, and excellent for fresh consumption.
Normally, farmers plant seedlings of C. sativa as a rootstock and grafting them with Judia material collected from self selected trees. In order to improve its valorisation. In 1994 there were created two protected designation of origin (PDO) called “Castanha da Terra Fria” and “Castanha da Padrela”. The first PDO corresponds to an area comprising between Bragança and Macedo de Cavaleiros and second one to a region with Valpaços being its centre.
In both regions there are chestnut trees growing at an altitude of 600 m to 1000 m. In “Castanha da Padrela” Judia represents almost 90% of total production.
However, Judia shows some adaptative constraints to summer’s high temperatures as it is
frequently happening nowadays in both regions as a consequence of climatic changes. According to studies the optimal temperature for photosynthesis in Judia is about 24ºC
being its production strongly reduced (above 50%) when temperature goes up 32ºC.
This ideal temperature range makes it very suitable for UK climates.