The bark death and wasp in Hungarian chestnut

The chestnut season lasts! Typically, sweet chestnuts ripen in October and are now available in markets and store shelves. And as the colder weather arrives, it also appears at street chestnut roasters. In Hungary, most of it grows in Western and Southern Transdanubia. However, the cultivation of sweet chestnuts belonging to the beech tree is risky because in the last decade and a half an intensified fungal disease, bark death (Cryphonectria parasitica), epidemically decimates the trees. NAK wrote that sweet chestnuts are also native to Hungary. To grow a very demanding plant, special ecological requirements must be met. It prefers balanced, wetter weather and acidic soils. For this reason, farm-scale cultivation is only possible in some parts of the country, such as the South Transdanubia, Western Transdanubia and Börzsöny Mountains. Like hazelnuts, it is typically a small-scale plant. The plantations planted in the 1970s, with a total area of about 450 hectares, are now almost ...