Some stories smell like roasted chestnuts and the scent of winter rain. And some stories smell like loss. The tale of the Cretan chestnut now carries both fragrances at once — sweet in memory, bitter in reality. Behind the picturesque mountain groves, behind every glossy chestnut sold at the markets of Chania, there is a slow-motion tragedy unfolding. And the person ringing the alarm bell louder than anyone else is researcher Stefanos Diamantis.
Diamantis does not exaggerate. He does not dramatize. He does not speak in metaphors. When he describes what is happening to the Cretan chestnut, he uses a word that Cretans do not throw around lightly: “crimes.” Crimes against a tree that fed generations, warmed homes, anchored villages, and shaped the agricultural character of western Crete.
Foreign Saplings, Local Disaster
The problem, he explains, is painfully simple. Young farmers in Chania have taken to importing chestnut saplings from Aridaia, Larissa, Lamia — anywhere except Crete itself. On the surface, it sounds harmless: a sapling is a sapling. But agriculture is not IKEA. You cannot assemble a tree with foreign pieces and expect centuries of local adaptation to remain untouched.
According to Diamantis, two dangers come packaged with every imported sapling:
- Foreign genetic material dilutes the natural characteristics of the Cretan chestnut. In a few years, what grows will not taste, behave, or survive like the chestnuts the island has known for generations.
- Pathogens hitch a ride. Chief among them is the chestnut gall wasp — a pest already plaguing the rest of Greece.
- As Diamantis puts it: “The wasp cannot fly across the sea. It will only arrive with planting material.”
In other words, Crete’s chestnut groves, isolated enough to escape the pest naturally, are now being exposed by human carelessness.
A Map, a Plan, and Not Enough People
Is there a solution? Yes — in theory.
Diamantis proposes a combination of new growers, proper water management, and, crucially, the use of a specialized chestnut suitability map compiled between 2017 and 2021, based on 500 soil and terrain samples. The map identifies areas ideal for planting new chestnut groves, expanding far beyond the traditional zones.
The data exists. The knowledge exists. The land exists.
What does not exist is action.
“We need growers willing to invest. We need a nursery. We need local genetic material,” he insists. The sad truth is that you cannot find Cretan chestnut saplings anymore. The few remaining trees are too old to supply viable material.
And even if someone tries, the next obstacle is water. A chestnut tree is a forest tree, yes — but a productive grove needs targeted irrigation. Not the current situation where, as Diamantis says with resigned humor, “every producer runs water from the spring with 300 meters of hose and lets it flow all summer.”
The result is wasted water, poor yield, and conditions ripe for disease — especially melanosis, which thrives in mismanaged soils.
In Larissa, open water reservoirs support chestnut cultivation effectively. “We could do the same in Crete,” Diamantis says. But Crete is still far from that level of coordination.
Trees Older Than Their Villages
The most heartbreaking part of the story is not the pathogens or the bureaucracy; it is the human cost. It is the age of the trees themselves.
Every chestnut tree in Crete, Diamantis says, is 80 to 100 years old or more. There are no young orchards. New plantings simply did not happen — not in this generation, not in the previous one.
These elderly trees are still being asked to carry the economy of entire villages.
It is like asking a ninety-year-old to lift sacks of grain.
Diamantis uses exactly that metaphor:
“Trying to heal an old tree from chestnut blight is like trying to vaccinate a 90-year-old and expect him to behave like a 30-year-old.”
Crete is one of the last regions in Greece still battling chestnut blight. This disease has been eradicated elsewhere through biological solutions. Old trees do not respond well. Their bark cracks, their branches weaken, their wounds deepen. And yet growers expect 50, even 100 kilos of chestnuts per tree.
“It cannot happen,” Diamantis says. “We need a reboot. We need to start from zero.”
It is a sobering thought: an entire agricultural tradition may vanish simply because nobody planted the next generation.
Meanwhile, Everywhere Else… Progress
While Crete hesitates, Europe charges ahead.
Italy, France, Spain — and especially Portugal — have made leaps in chestnut production. They produce, innovate, and export. They understood decades ago that chestnuts are a treasure, not a nostalgic ornament.
And Greece?
“Still at zero,” Diamantis sighs.
Not just Crete — the ministry level, too.
He finds the contradiction maddening. Everyone complains that olives no longer pay, that olive oil no longer supports farmers, and that the crop is unpredictable and exhausting to cultivate. And yet?
Everyone plants more olives.
Meanwhile, chestnuts — a crop that requires minimal spraying, minimal fertilization, minimal irrigation, and generates real income — are overlooked.
This year, Cretan chestnuts began selling at €5 per kilo, an exceptionally high price that reflects demand, rarity, and the shrinking supply.
But price does not matter if the trees die.
Or if the genetic identity disappears.
Or if pathogens arrive and finish what neglect began.
A Sad Story, But Not Hopeless
The tragedy of the Cretan chestnut is not inevitable. It is unfolding slowly, while people look elsewhere.
What Crete needs is not a miracle — just organization, nurseries, incentives for young farmers, controlled irrigation, protection of local genetics, and community-level awareness that a tree can be heritage.
But until that happens, the chestnuts of Crete stand like elderly guardians — proud, exhausted, and waiting for someone to care enough to plant a successor.
A tree cannot shout.
But Diamantis can.
And he is shouting for all of them.