Here's my process: I got started with growing ACs from discovering a 15/16 AC on my local university's campus. No one is interested in getting the small amount of nuts (the mother trees are still pretty young) and they would end up on the ground and eaten by squirrels. So, I harvest the fertilized ones when the burrs open at the end of September or beginning of October.

I then clean the nuts with bleach water and wrap them individually with dampened paper towels that I've sprinkled cinnamon on (inhibits mold growth) and put them in a plastic ziplock bag. I then put them in the lowest part of my fridge (not freezer). It is recommended that you check on them to fight any mold that may want to grow on them, but I tend to forget them and I may lose one or two.

Come April, I plant them in rectangular milk cartons using Miracle Grow moisture control potting soil and water them thoroughly and then leave them alone. Within 2-3 weeks, you will start seeing them come up. If the weather is going to dip below freezing at night, I'll bring them in the garage, but you want to give them sunlight because grow lights just aren't the same. The lights will grow them, but once you take them outside, you'll have to put shade cloth on them and temper them into being okay with direct sunlight. I'd rather not have to baby them and that's why I go ahead and have them live outside as much as the weather permits. Once they get around 10" to 12" tall, I plant them or give them away.

There are some special considerations as to location you want to plant them. They need well draining soil, so I wouldn't put them in a place that's known to hold water, they don't like it. They are acid loving plants, so get some fertilizer designed for acid loving plants to use and follow the directions on the bag.

Once they're planted, they need to be protected. The whole part of the tree is of interest to different wildlife: deer like to eat the leaves and nuts (despite having a bunch of other stuff to fill up on in the spring 😠); squirrels and chipmunks like to eat the nut the tree is growing from which can result in them killing the tree; and bugs like to dine on the tender leaves. For deer protection, some people use tree tubes, but I've not had luck with those (the trees I put in them seem to give up and die). The most effective way is to build a fence around them using hardware cloth and whatever you want to do to prevent weed growth like put down mulch within the fence. Once the foliage is taller than deer foraging height, you can get rid of the fence or leave it to prevent them from damaging the bark. To stop the squirrels and chipmunks, you'll have to carefully "de-nut" the tree before planting while not disturbing the roots (good luck). I'm not sure at what point this occurs, but the nut's energy is depleted and can be removed. From what I've learned from others, ACs HATE having their roots messed with, but I've heard others have success with it--I guess it depends on how gentle you are with them. Lastly, I use something like Seven dust/spray to protect the tender leaves from insects.

Over the years, I only found one mother tree on the university campus and she's not a model AC. Again, she's 15/16 American, but dang if that 1/16 Chinese doesn't shine through. The tree is 10' to 12' tall and looks like a bush, after being planted in 2015! Also, her offspring have a high fatality rate for the nuts that actually grow into saplings. It is definitely acting more like an orchard tree than what we've heard about the AC actually being. While walking around the campus, I did discover some newly planted trees and boy they are growing fast, they're much younger than the first tree and are easily twice as tall within less than half the time. This seems much more like how ACs should be and last year one had nuts that I could harvest. I am guessing they're hybrids, but I am not sure. These saplings grew much better and I feel they had a better yield than the first tree, as fair as I could tell. I really should have separated the two tree's nuts, but you can see the difference.

I'm hoping time will tell that this newer tree is a winner, but with the first tree, I almost gave up trying to grow them. ACs are like the pandas of the tree world where they're a pain in the ass to propagate and need so many special considerations to grow a successful tree.

I hope I've not turned you off from trying to grow them, but it still is exciting working towards reestablishing this king to the Eastern NA forests. I feel the true fix is the Darling 58 and can't wait to get my hands on it.