The chestnut tree is a symbol of cultural identity and the collective unconscious of the Galician rural population. This phenomenon is not accidental, but it is motivated by the role of this tree in the traditional rural agricultural production systems, and producer of:

• Nutritious and energy fruits which are easy to conserve and which have high organoleptic qualities.
• High durability and resistant wood, which has excellent quality for use in furniture making and constructive and structural building elements of houses.

Currently, the Chestnut became the leafy deciduous tree in Galicia that has greater potential to generate rural development, thanks to its double production: wood and fruits, and the ability to complement productions with silvopastoralism, and the production of forest fruits, mushrooms, and so on.

The maintenance, conservation and restoration of groves, as well as the promotion of its implementation generates the short, medium and long term, income encourages the creation of jobs, and strengthens the environmental and scenic resources of society as a whole, as well as traditional values.

Chestnut populations in this country, Castanea sativa, existing in south western Europe began to present important attacks popularly known as “root rot chestnut” in the middle of the19th Century This is a cryptogamic disease, caused by a fungus that attacks the roots of the plant.

The area of highest incidence of this disease in Galicia covers the coastal areas of the provinces of A Coruña, and Pontevedra and to a lesser extent Lugo, on land at an altitude of 600 m or less.

In the first decades of the twentieth century in search of a solution to decrease the populations of chestnut infected by cinnamon root rot , it was decided initially to introduce Japanese and Chinese Chestnut, Castanea crenata and Castanea mollissima, seeds resistant to the fungus. This practice was eliminated due to the poor adaptation of the Asian chestnut to summer drought and its low compatibility of implant with varieties of local chestnut.

In the 30th the first studies began on obtaining hybrid Chestnuts, Castanea x Hybrid coudercii, an artificial hybrid obtained by controlled cross pollination of native chestnut, Castanea sativa, which was very sensitive to fungus Phytophtora cinamomi, cause of cinnamon root rot disease, with Japanese and Chinese chestnut trees resistant to this disease.

The first programs to obtain hybrid chestnut were carried out by Pedro Urquijo Landaluce in 1938, various programs were later developed for selecting clones, resistant to cinnamon root rot for wood production.

At present a total of 32 hybrid clones are approved as basic materials of the controlled and skilled categories (according to RD 289/2003, which regulates the marketing of forest reproduction material) which have been selected by CINAM-Lourizán.

The use of hybrid chestnut makes possible the reintroduction of the chestnut tree in the Cantabrian and Atlantic climate zones, where the local chestnut is not viable because the fungi attack the traditional varieties very likely due to the weather. In addition, by selecting clones with good aptitudes to rootstocks, hybrids can be used as patterns as well as varieties of grafted chestnut producers.