Bulletin E3538
Michigan Chestnut Cost of Production, 2025
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January 13, 2026 - Chris Bardenhagen and Erin Lizotte, Michigan State University Extension
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Michigan chestnut acreage is growing. Planted acreage doubled from 675 acres in 2017 to over 1,300 acres in 2022. However, only 63% of the total acres in 2022 were bearing. The lengthy establishment period for these orchards will result in production volumes increasing steadily and substantially over the next five to ten years. Accordingly, industry actors will need to address how to meet higher demands for harvesting equipment and processing infrastructure in the coming years.
The costs for establishment of chestnut orchards are estimated at $21,257 per acre. Given the long life of chestnut trees, this cost can be allocated over 32 production years, for a per-year establishment cost of $664 per acre. The ongoing operating costs during production years—the costs needed to grow the nuts—came to $1,541 per year for an acre.
For harvest costs, this study looked at both hand harvest and machine harvest. Hand harvest is often associated with on-farm packing activities, and so those related costs were included in the hand harvest budget. Hand harvest costs average $3,182 per acre. Adding together the establishment, operating, and harvest costs, the grand total economic costs during production years come to $5,387 per acre for hand harvested chestnuts ($2.15 per pound).
Machine harvest is generally associated with packing and marketing by a cooperative. As a result, we included trucking in the machine harvest budget. Machine harvest costs averaged $859 an acre, with total economic costs during production years amounting to $3,064 per acre for machine-harvested chestnuts ($1.23 per pound).
At current prices and costs, chestnut production is profitable for both categories. Hand-harvested, direct-marketed chestnuts have the highest profitability and return on investment. This mode of operation does, however, require high levels of management and substantial time for marketing efforts. As a result, growers with smaller acreages tend to focus on direct sales. Growers that utilize machine harvest are garnering a strong return on investment. They can focus their efforts on managing larger acreages to obtain higher overall volumes.
Note that many of the costs allocated to different production activities represent additional profits to growers who are doing those tasks themselves. A substantial percentage of chestnut growers, of all acreages, perform some or all of these for their farm (for example, pruning). However, as real economic costs, those labor allocations are directly included in our budgets.
