Chestnut

Chestnut is a plantable tree good that appears naturally on most Timberborn maps as part of the landscape. Chestnut trees occupy a 1×1×3 footprint and mature into fruit-bearing trees that produce chestnuts, which serve as a renewable food resource for beaver society. Chestnut trees can be felled for timber by lumberjacks, but their primary role is the production of edible nuts gathered by harvesters and processed into higher-value food in cookhouses.

Chestnuts are obtained in two ways: they spawn on natural tree clusters across maps and can also be planted by planters from stored chestnut items. Harvesters collect chestnuts from mature trees on a regular cycle. Trees regrow on an approximate harvest cycle and can be replanted to maintain a steady supply.

Practical details derived from game data and patch history make chestnuts straightforward to manage in agricultural planning. A chestnut tree’s base growth (maturation) time is about 23.5 days (older patch notes show a small reduction from 23.5 to 23 days in an update). Planting a new tree takes roughly 0.74 hours of worker time; felling requires about 1.2 hours. Harvest cycles occur every 8 days with each harvest action taking about 1 hour. Trees have a small natural reproduction chance (about 0.03) and a wilting window around 8 days (roughly 7.2–8.8 days accounting for randomness); flood death timing is around 9–11 days. Chestnut trees do not require a minimum water level to survive.

Gameplay considerations and strategies:

• Use chestnut orchards as a renewable midgame food source and feed cookhouses; cooked chestnuts provide more nutrition than raw chestnuts and help stabilize food supply.
• Avoid unnecessary felling if you need long-term nut production; fell only to harvest timber when wood is scarce.
• Plant clustered orchards adjacent to storage and cookhouses to minimize hauling time for both raw and cooked chestnuts.
• Monitor tree spacing and worker assignment so harvesters and planters can keep up with the roughly 8-day harvest cycle and the tree regrowth rate.
• Chestnuts are resilient to low water levels but can still be lost to prolonged flooding; protect orchards on higher ground where possible.
• Historical changes: chestnuts were introduced in the first update and later made exclusive to the Folktail content in a subsequent update.

Trivia: Chestnuts are the only nut in the game that contains vitamin C. In real-world cuisine, chestnuts are commonly roasted as street food; in Timberborn, beavers roast chestnuts in cookhouses to create a preferred cooked food item.