Central & Western Iowa · Des Moines to Omaha
Trees that make food for your land.
Don't tell us which cultivar you want. Tell us what you want your ground to do. We'll help you pick the right seedlings, protect them from deer and cattle, and get them planted right.
Start here
What matters most to you?
Pick one. We'll narrow 24 seed families down to the handful that actually fit. You do not need to understand chestnut breeding to buy a good tree.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Qing Family
If you only plant one family, plant this one. Qing is the all-around standard: sweet, easy-peeling nuts, dependable production, and genetics that have already proven themselves through Iowa winters.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Peach Family
Selected for flavor. If you plan to actually eat, roast or sell your crop, this is a family worth putting in the ground.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Gideon Family
A production-first family. Chosen because the parent tree simply makes a lot of nuts, year after year.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Scott Family
A tough, dependable Chinese family. Not flashy. Very hard to kill.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Resilient Family
Bred and selected around one question: which trees are still healthy in year twenty?
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Auburn Super Family
Chinese chestnut genetics pushed toward size. Big nuts without giving up blight resistance.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
QingSu Family
Qing quality with an extra push on nut size. One of the best all-around picks in the lineup.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Mossbarger Family
An old, well-documented selection with a reputation for exceptional flavor and heavy annual crops.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
BadgerQing Family
Northern cold hardiness plus Qing eating quality. Built for the coldest, most exposed ground in Iowa.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Large Badger Family
Cold-hardy northern genetics, selected up for nut size.
Chinese / Iowa-proven
Giant Badger Family
The biggest nut we offer that is still fully cold-hardy northern genetics.
Chinese hybrid
Skioka Family
Hybrid vigor. Fast, upright growth and big, sweet nuts.
Chinese hybrid
Layeroka Family
Early ripening and heavy bearing. The family to plant if you hunt the early season.
Japanese / European hybrid
Precoce Migoule Family
The name means early. Precocious bearing and large, sweet European-quality nuts.
Japanese / European hybrid
Whitten North Family
Hybrid nut size with selection pressure toward northern survival.
Japanese / European hybrid
Whitten South Family
The size-focused half of the Whitten line. Best on warm, sheltered southern Iowa ground.
Japanese / European hybrid
Silverleaf / Eurobella Family
European nut size and market appearance. The one you put on the table at Thanksgiving.
Japanese / European hybrid
Marsol Family
The wet-ground hybrid. Bred in France for resistance to ink disease, which is a root rot problem on heavy soils.
Japanese / European hybrid
Tanzawa Family
Very large nuts, very early ripening, and it bears young. A specialty family with real advantages.
Japanese / European hybrid
T0613 Family
A numbered French research selection, bred for root disease resistance and vigor.
Japanese / European hybrid
Primato Family
A European market-type chestnut: large, uniform, good-looking nuts.
Japanese / European hybrid
Marigoule Family
The classic French chestnut. Large, glossy, dark nuts with excellent flavor.
Japanese / European hybrid
Maraval Family
Large French-type nuts with better root disease tolerance than most European selections.
Experimental / heritage
American Chestnut Family
The native tree. Beautiful, historic, and honest about the risk: blight will likely find it eventually.
How this works
A tree in the ground, not a box on your porch
We are a small Iowa nursery, not a national mail-order catalog. Everything is local pickup, a Des Moines meetup, or we come plant it for you.
-
Tell us your goal
Deer, early nuts, big nuts, cold hardiness, disease resistance, fast growth or food for your family. Use the finder above or just send us a message describing your ground.
-
We recommend a mix
Almost nobody should plant one family. A mix spreads disease risk, guarantees cross pollination, and staggers your nut drop across September and October instead of dumping it all in one week.
-
Reserve for spring
Reservations open January 2027 for the April - May 2027 season. A deposit holds your trees. Popular families sell out.
-
Pick up, or we install
Grab them at the farm or meet us in Des Moines. Or let us plant them with tree tubes and stakes, or T-posts and welded wire cages if you run cattle.
Why seedlings
Known parents. Honest labeling. Real prices.
We sell seedlings, not grafted named cultivars. Every one of our seedlings was grown from a nut produced by a specific named parent tree, sourced from respected programs including Burnt Ridge Nursery in Washington and the Iowa chestnut genetics developed at Red Fern Farm.
A Qing family seedling is not a Qing tree. It is the daughter of one. That distinction matters, and we say it out loud on every page, because plenty of sellers blur it.
What you get in exchange for that honesty is a tree at a fraction of grafted prices, with its own natural taproot that establishes faster and lives longer in a field, and genetic diversity that keeps one disease from taking out your whole planting.
We started them in winter. Every seedling gets a head start in our insulated shed under grow lights before it ever sees Iowa weather. That is why our spring trees are further along than a bare-root plug pulled out of cold storage.
What we won't sell you. We chose not to grow the Prolific line because of disease concerns, and we label American chestnut clearly as a heritage planting that will most likely get blight. We would rather lose a sale than sell you a tree that disappoints you in year twelve.
More than nursery stock
Selection, protection and installation
The number one reason tree plantings fail is not the tree. It is grass competition, deer browse and no protection. We fix all three.
Tree tubes & stakes
Stops browse and rub, speeds early growth, makes spraying safe, and lets you actually find your trees in tall grass.
T-posts & cattle cages
Cows destroy standard tube setups. If livestock have access we build a heavier welded wire cage on a T-post.
Full installation
We deliver, plant, protect, treat the base for weed competition, map your planting and hand you a care sheet.
Ready to plan your planting?
Tell us your county, roughly how many trees, and what you want the land to accomplish. We will send back a recommended mix and a price.