The chestnut (Castanea mollissima Blume) has a very large cultivation area and production in the world and is an important nut species crop worldwide. It is also an important food and timber crop in many parts of China. It is known that pollination plays an important role in the fruit quality and fruit productivity of this species. To investigate its role, 8 locally selected pollen sources were tested for their effect on indicators of fruit quality and fruit productivity of ‘Yanshanzaofeng’ (YSZF) trees. Natural pollination served as the control experiment. Chestnut has the characteristic of alternate year bearing, so data of 2 yr was averaged and used as the final data in the study on chestnut productivity. Cross pollination of these recipient trees by ‘Zipo’ (ZP) pollen led to the highest fruit set at 86.67%, ‘Dabanhong’ (DBH) pollen led to the highest total yield (1.62 kg tree-1), ‘Qianxizhuangli’ (QXZL) pollen resulted in the highest kernel percentage (54.71%), whereas selfpollination resulted in the lowest kernel percentage. Self-pollination led to a heavier single-grain weight than did the other treatments. ZP pollen resulted in the lowest fat and the highest crude protein contents. ‘Qianxizaohong’ (QXZH) pollen resulted in the highest percentage of soluble sugars. ‘Yanshanduanzhi’ (YSDZ) pollen resulted in the highest amylopectin content, and DBH pollen resulted in the highest amylose content. The pollen of DBH and ‘Yanlong’ (YL) ranked best in a comprehensive analysis of all data using a gray relational analysis (GRA), with self-pollination ranking last and natural pollination ranking next to last. Thus, in this study, pollen sources had xenia effects in chestnut, and the results suggested proper species DBH and YL as pollination trees for YSZF
.