Advice for growing Malabar chestnut?

[HuaNuiTrees]

Aloha fruit-growing friends  I'm growing a few Malabar chestnut trees and can't find much info about harvesting them. (I live on the rainy side of Hawaii's Big Island.) Do you prune the trees to easily get to the pods? They've been ripening on the tree and splitting open to spill the nuts, so maybe I should be removing them first? Any tips and advice would be appreciated!

[Doug]

I had the same question. I talked with a friend at CATIE (the agro research center here), and he told me to just let the ripe nuts fall the the ground.

[luc]

That's correct , let the fruits fall , all you have to do is collect the nuts , you can eat them raw or toast them , when eating them raw in the beginning there's not a lot of flavor , that comes after a few minutes . I love them and have several trees , way more than I can eat ....lots of volunteer seedlings all around the trees .

[pineislander]

They are pretty tough. Yesterday I saw a stump which had been pulled out of the ground and just dumped on a vacant lot. It caught some roots and is growing. I might go back and divide some of the sprouted parts. I was given a piece which may have been a seedling or may have been a root sucker. I stuck it in a pot and watered and it is growing enough to plant out this summer.

[HuaNuiTrees]

Thanks everyone for your replies! So far my tree has only produced a few pods with not many nuts, but they were really tasty. Next time I'll try roasting them!

[fruitlovers]

You can also pick the pods off the trees when mature and they will split open in a few days indoors. I do this all the time. Otherwise it's hard to find them all on the ground and animals can get them. Just wait till pods are full size and start turning less shiny green.

[HuaNuiTrees]

Mahalo Oscar, I was worried about mongoose and rats stealing the nuts before I could get to them!  Do you keep your trees pruned low so it's easier to harvest?

[fruitlovers]

Mahalo Oscar, I was worried about mongoose and rats stealing the nuts before I could get to them!  Do you keep your trees pruned low so it's easier to harvest?

I don't keep them pruned as they are planted right into lava rock, so that restricts their growth. But if yours are in good soil, then it's a good idea as they can get kind of tall.

[johnnydo]

Oscar are you guys talking about glabra or aquatica?
Is aquatica still considered poisonous?