Nice pics, that's a beautiful tree, 046. Let us know if you find the partner tree that is pollinating it. That tree will also be bearing fertile nuts pollinated by this tree. If you plant some nuts, you might be lucky and grow a tree that will start flowering in only 5 or 6 years. I planted 5 trees in my yard and hope to get trees that will live at least 10 years, reach 30 feet in height, and give me several crops of nuts (all reasonable expectations, I have been told). It's a great little project, and other people are starting to show some interest.
American Chestnut
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M.D. Vaden
vadenphotography.com
Hard decision sometimes to intervene with resistant cultivars, or decide to let nature take its course as it has so many time to provide much of what we enjoy in natural environments.
jrparbor04
ArboristSite Operative
beautiful tree,,,one of the few that i have are about that size,,,havent been able to make it out there to actually take the pics lately,,,i have three trees,,,to be exact on fertile nuts to choose from,,,i will now plan on taking some nuts from each tree and trying to cultivate them in the ground naturally and also in our tree nursery we have
tree md
Addicted to ArboristSite
just got back from taking pictures and actual measurements of this beautiful mature chestnut tree in Tulsa, OK.
sorry can't give out location.
measures 89in circumference or aprox 28in DBH
trunk is smaller near base, 24in dia.
height is aprox. 60ft
in good health loaded with nuts.
now I'm curious as to location of second chestnut close by.
Great find 046!!!
Beautiful tree. I live in Tulsa and would love to hook up and get a few nuts from you sometime so I can try to plant them. PM me if you would be willing to do that.
When I think of the American Chestnuts and what a sight they must have been it always makes me a little sad. Kind of like the loss of the great buffalo herds. I have read that when they started building the railroads that trains would sometimes have to stop and wait for 4 and 5 days just to let a huge herd pass. Likewise, I have read that 1 in 3 trees in the old eastern forests were American Chestnuts. I remember reading somewhere that it is estimated that the blight killed 3 billion trees.
DadF
ArboristSite Operative
The tree in West Lafayette that PUclimber talked about was kind of hidden until I found it again and sent an email to the ACF. One of my old forestry professors remembered it being there after I said something to him about(G. Parker in case your wondering PU). I know that ACF was in here last and did work with it but I never got a chance to go back and talk with them. It is on property that Purdue had been trying to obtain for years but the owner sold it to the United Methodist for a new church. I had been taking care of the lot for a couple of years before the church got around to finally breaking ground and that was how I found it again.
This year's harvest
These two photos show nuts and burrs collected 10 days ago from the 60-ft American chestnut near Madison, ME. The tree produced over 900 fertile nuts this year, a bumper crop, but it may not produce again, as it has become seriously blighted.
The fertile nuts are large and plump (teaspoon gives scale), whereas the duds are concave and much smaller. Burrs often contain both. Typically there are 3 nuts per burr, but the burr nearest the spoon in the upper photo contains 5, the most I have seen.
The burrs are irresistable to squirrels, who will gnaw off small limbs to get them to drop. Though the spines are very sharp, especially on burrs that have dried out and turned brown, they seem to pose no problem for the squirrels, who can easily rip the burrs open. Many burrs open while still on the tree and dump their nuts before falling.
A good windstorm at the right time can dump a huge load of burrs on the ground, overwhelming the squirrels and giving a human a decent chance at a sizable harvest.
The burrs closest to the ground and closest to the trunk ripen first. When I collected nuts 10 days ago, only the top 10 feet of the tree had any burrs left. I used my Big Shot to get a line over several top branches all in a bundle. By pulling and jerking on both legs of the line, I was able to break off or shake loose a dozen or more burrs that clearly had not been visited by the squirrels.
I will stratify the nuts over the winter. If all goes as planned, there should be a couple of dozen germinating plants waiting for me next Spring.
These two photos show nuts and burrs collected 10 days ago from the 60-ft American chestnut near Madison, ME. The tree produced over 900 fertile nuts this year, a bumper crop, but it may not produce again, as it has become seriously blighted.
The fertile nuts are large and plump (teaspoon gives scale), whereas the duds are concave and much smaller. Burrs often contain both. Typically there are 3 nuts per burr, but the burr nearest the spoon in the upper photo contains 5, the most I have seen.
The burrs are irresistable to squirrels, who will gnaw off small limbs to get them to drop. Though the spines are very sharp, especially on burrs that have dried out and turned brown, they seem to pose no problem for the squirrels, who can easily rip the burrs open. Many burrs open while still on the tree and dump their nuts before falling.
A good windstorm at the right time can dump a huge load of burrs on the ground, overwhelming the squirrels and giving a human a decent chance at a sizable harvest.
The burrs closest to the ground and closest to the trunk ripen first. When I collected nuts 10 days ago, only the top 10 feet of the tree had any burrs left. I used my Big Shot to get a line over several top branches all in a bundle. By pulling and jerking on both legs of the line, I was able to break off or shake loose a dozen or more burrs that clearly had not been visited by the squirrels.
I will stratify the nuts over the winter. If all goes as planned, there should be a couple of dozen germinating plants waiting for me next Spring.
BostonBull
Addicted to ArboristSite
am jealous! I wish I knew where that tree was. Shame that it has the blight though.
Good luck with the saplings I hope all goes well for you!
Good luck with the saplings I hope all goes well for you!
got a decent crop from the Tulsa 60ft Chestnut tree... mix of fertile nuts and shriveled one's (mostly shriveled). there's another tree close by, but have not located.
no sign of blight on tree. this entire area's chestnut trees were almost wiped out by blight years ago.
I'll be posting pic's later..
what's the best way to germinate?
no sign of blight on tree. this entire area's chestnut trees were almost wiped out by blight years ago.
I'll be posting pic's later..
what's the best way to germinate?
callagher
ArboristSite Lurker
Hybrid chestnut tree?
I was given half a dozen burrs by a family member (My Mom). The story goes...they (Mom & Dad) were walking through a state park and saw a Forest Service type person planting seeds. My Mom asked him what he was planting...he said hybridized Amercian Chestnut. My Mom went on about how I was interested in finding some seedlings or seeds when "they" decided what to re-plant...blight resistant American Chestnut (if they ever figure out how to do that)...or hybridized trees, if that was the only answer.
The State Forest person was amazed that someone even knew or cared about then American Chestnut situation...and he gave my Mom 6 burrs, to give to me.
Anyone have an opinion on these hybrisized trees?
I was given half a dozen burrs by a family member (My Mom). The story goes...they (Mom & Dad) were walking through a state park and saw a Forest Service type person planting seeds. My Mom asked him what he was planting...he said hybridized Amercian Chestnut. My Mom went on about how I was interested in finding some seedlings or seeds when "they" decided what to re-plant...blight resistant American Chestnut (if they ever figure out how to do that)...or hybridized trees, if that was the only answer.
The State Forest person was amazed that someone even knew or cared about then American Chestnut situation...and he gave my Mom 6 burrs, to give to me.
Anyone have an opinion on these hybrisized trees?
I haven't done it yet, but I was instructed by a pro who does it every year. He uses one-quart plastic zip-lock baggies full of slightly damp peatmoss. The nuts are layered in the bag so they don't touch each other (up to 50 in a bag), and then they are placed in the refrigerator for the winter. Punch a few holes in the upper bag to allow gas exchange, and keep the temperature just above freezing. How much moisture? Take half a bag's worth of peat moss and soak it in water, then squeeze out all the moisture you can with your hands. Mix that with an equal volume of dry peat moss. The mixture will be about right. If you search around the TACF web site, you can find more info. Good luck!
The trees provided for sale by the Maine chapter of TACF are 100% American, and as such, are fully susceptible to blight. I am not aware of anyone supplying hybrid chestnuts. It is the goal of the Maine chapter, and probably of all the other state chapters as well, to provide 100% blight-resistant 15/16 American/Chinese chestnut seedlings for public distribution, and to restock the forests with those same trees. To release earlier hybrids simply invites contaminating the final hard-won release trees with Chinese genes, and possibly ending up with a forest full of trees with poor (Chinese) form and with unknown genetic ancestry.
In other words, planting currently available hybrids is a bad idea. But even the 100% American trees can live many years before succumbing to blight, and can easily survive long enough to produce fruit. In fact I just found a hitherto unknown (I think!) chestnut in the woods two blocks from my house! It is 35 feet tall, 5" DBH, and would certainly be bearing fruit but for the fact it does not receive quite enough direct sunlight.
Maine expects to have final release trees within 10 years, and I think Virginia may have release trees in just another couple of years.
too early to tell..... due to size of this mature tree. high probability this tree was alive when blight wiped out almost all chestnut trees in Tulsa area.
either this tree is blight resistant or was isolated when blight went through this area. logic says it's more likely natural resistance. it's a near certainty this tree and other chestnut tree close by have already been exposed.
plan is to plant a few burrs in the ground to allow natural cold cycle to occur. there's another local arborist that's also interested in germinating a few plants.
we'll see how it goes...
either this tree is blight resistant or was isolated when blight went through this area. logic says it's more likely natural resistance. it's a near certainty this tree and other chestnut tree close by have already been exposed.
plan is to plant a few burrs in the ground to allow natural cold cycle to occur. there's another local arborist that's also interested in germinating a few plants.
we'll see how it goes...
marcos
ArboristSite Lurker
Here's an example of a newer American Chestnut project going on right now in eastern Ohio, on old strip mine property, with the cooperation of Ohio University, Miami University of Ohio, and the American Chestnut Foundation :
http://news.research.ohiou.edu/noteb...x.php?item=358
( maybe this is what callagher was talking about ?!?...the strip mine reclamation project last spring was in about the same part of Ohio as he's from....but I doubt they were dealing with 'seeds' or 'nuts' at all )
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moray, you got to admit it's tough...waiting around for maybe another decade or so for the (hopefully) 'ace-in-the-hole' blight-resistant American Chestnut to be confirmed truly "blight-free"..(and maybe not :jawdrop: ?!?)
And then, of course, probably another solid 3 to 5 years before any of them could be grown to the size where they could be marketed...
...not to mention what the price of them will be at that point !!
Are you saying it's dangerous to the overall future success of the American Chestnut to plant ANY hybrids, like the Revival, Clapper and Dunstan ?
If so, why exactly?
Is there anyone out there who's planted hybrids that's had successes?
Or Failures?
I'd like to try to grow some here in SW Ohio...a little out of their natural range I know, with high pH and clayey soils.
But I know what I'm doing with soil amendments like sand, sulfur, cottonseed meal, and the like; to make happy homes for many a chestnut tree in this area when / if the time comes.
And I can't think of a better way to address the southward encroachment of the Emerald Ash Borer (a.k.a. "Green Menace" :blob6: ) into this area by answering a disaster like that with the miracle of the American Chestnuts!
marcos, I couldn't get your link to work...
It may not be quite that bad, but you make a good point. They don't know for sure it will work, but the chief geneticist for the TACF program, whom I met a couple of months ago, is cautiously optimistic.
The Maine chapter of TACF, me included, got a guided tour of one of the Maine breeding orchards of 3rd backcross trees that had been intentionally innoculated with the fungus to determine resistance levels. The geneticist was showing us the trees about 3 months later. Since one parent of all the trees was pure American, and the other was a 2nd backcross hybrid, none of the trees could have more than half the resistance genes, and many would have less than that. By measuring the size of the blight canker on the trees, one estimates the level of resistance, which presumably correlates with the number of resistance genes. The least resistant trees are culled, and the best ones continue in the breeding program. It is worth noting that even a fully resistant Chinese chestnut will develop a canker when challenged in this way, but the canker stops expanding when still quite small, and the tree is not threatened. In any event, this test for resistance seems quite rough, and there is still no hard knowledge about the genetics of resistance (they believe 2 or 3 genes are involved, and fully resistant trees are homozygous for all the genes involved). All this uncertainty justifies your skeptical comment.
This is a good question. The short answer is my warning probably comes too late. The long answer again involves the genetics. The ideal recovery program would have been to find a few excellent specimens of pure American trees and simply inject them with the 3 genes for resistance. Someday they may be able to do this, or something very like it. But since the genetics of resistance is not understood, the compromise plan is to breed hybrid trees that are 15/16 American and 1/16 Chinese. We have to put up with that 1/16 as the price of getting the resistance genes. If I remember right, the first American trees chosen were Clapper and Graves, which were big survivor trees with good form. Subsequent backcrosses are made to the best local survivors that can be found. When final release trees are available in a given area, most of the genes in the release trees will have come from local trees.
After all this effort to minimize the Chinese contribution and maximize the American, the last thing you want surrounding your happy new forest of 15/16 American chestnuts is a bunch of Chinese or other hybrids wafting pollen into the forest. The genes will flow into and out of the forest with every pollen crop, and you will eventually have a forest considerably diluted from the 15/16 American you started with. But as I say, it is probably too late to prevent this.
marcos
ArboristSite Lurker
Sorry, moray...
I'll try the 2006 rural eastern Ohio strip-mine chestnut planting project again here. :
http://news.research.ohiou.edu/notebook/index.php?item=358
Exciting stuff, and close to home.....!
So I'm gathering by what you're saying, that sometime in the future my kids or grandkids may indeed see a comeback American Chestnut tree (or a close enough genetic variation) growing in the woods producing nuts just like what my great-grandpa and Bing Crosby
knew. But just like what commonly happens with some oaks, the pollen mixes in the forest, producing all kinds of wierd variations over time, right?Would it be safe to assume that more isolated groups of American Chestnut plantings, maybe at larger sites like municipal parks, or in and around larger campuses and buisiness parks in the future, would be a great deal less likely to have cross-pollination issues with chinese chestnuts, given the likelihood that the "underbrush" would be much more controlled in theses scenarios than in a typical forest?
The new link worked--good story. I didn't know Ohio was that close to releasing trees.
I think you're right about this. Here in Maine I think Chinese trees or hybrids must be very rare, as I have never seen nor heard of one. When we start releasing trees, they should not degrade from intermixing. Also, there may be other factors in our favor. Perhaps Chinese trees release pollen a week too early or a week too late to affect the release trees. Perhaps Chinese pollen is significantly less efficient at pollinating American trees. Perhaps Chinese trees can't survive very well in our woods, or not at all in some places.
There is another interesting twist to this story related to my surprise at the fact that Ohio is already ready to release hybrids. It is not sufficient merely to reach the stage where you are standing there staring at a 3rd backcross tree that is 15/16 American. One of its parents was full American, and that tree donated no resistance genes. You have two more steps to go. The best 15/16 trees, those showing the most resistance when challenged with the fungus, have to be bred to each other. This is not a back cross. It is analagous to crossing two humans, each with only one gene for blue eyes (so each parent has brown eyes), in the hopes of getting an offspring with blue eyes (both genes for blue eyes). One in 4 offspring, on average should end up with blue eyes. In the case of the chestnut, assuming there are 3 genes for resistance, the situation is much worse. One would expect only 1 in 64 offspring to inherit two copies of all 3 genes for resistance. This is a very low yield, obviously, but those are the trees you need as the foundation for the release program. Creating a breeding orchard from the fully resistant 15/16 trees is the final step. When those trees are put in a breeding orchard by themselves and allowed to freely cross, the resulting nuts should all have full resistance and are ready to release to the wild.
It would be cool if you could find out more about your Ohio trees. Are they really certified release trees, or merely 15/16 hybrids?
So I'm gathering by what you're saying, that sometime in the future my kids or grandkids may indeed see a comeback American Chestnut tree (or a close enough genetic variation) growing in the woods producing nuts just like what my great-grandpa and Bing Crosby
Would it be safe to assume that more isolated groups of American Chestnut plantings, maybe at larger sites like municipal parks, or in and around larger campuses and buisiness parks in the future, would be a great deal less likely to have cross-pollination issues with chinese chestnuts, given the likelihood that the "underbrush" would be much more controlled in theses scenarios than in a typical forest?
I think you're right about this. Here in Maine I think Chinese trees or hybrids must be very rare, as I have never seen nor heard of one. When we start releasing trees, they should not degrade from intermixing. Also, there may be other factors in our favor. Perhaps Chinese trees release pollen a week too early or a week too late to affect the release trees. Perhaps Chinese pollen is significantly less efficient at pollinating American trees. Perhaps Chinese trees can't survive very well in our woods, or not at all in some places.
There is another interesting twist to this story related to my surprise at the fact that Ohio is already ready to release hybrids. It is not sufficient merely to reach the stage where you are standing there staring at a 3rd backcross tree that is 15/16 American. One of its parents was full American, and that tree donated no resistance genes. You have two more steps to go. The best 15/16 trees, those showing the most resistance when challenged with the fungus, have to be bred to each other. This is not a back cross. It is analagous to crossing two humans, each with only one gene for blue eyes (so each parent has brown eyes), in the hopes of getting an offspring with blue eyes (both genes for blue eyes). One in 4 offspring, on average should end up with blue eyes. In the case of the chestnut, assuming there are 3 genes for resistance, the situation is much worse. One would expect only 1 in 64 offspring to inherit two copies of all 3 genes for resistance. This is a very low yield, obviously, but those are the trees you need as the foundation for the release program. Creating a breeding orchard from the fully resistant 15/16 trees is the final step. When those trees are put in a breeding orchard by themselves and allowed to freely cross, the resulting nuts should all have full resistance and are ready to release to the wild.
It would be cool if you could find out more about your Ohio trees. Are they really certified release trees, or merely 15/16 hybrids?
marcos
ArboristSite Lurker
Great info, thanks!
O.K...But you said you're tied in with, or are a member of the Maine chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, right?
You've said you've at least met the chapter's geneticist.
Wouldn't it be simple to ask a key person you know at the Maine chapter of the A.C.F. to talk to Brian McCarthy, or someone else at the Ohio Chapter who would know the answer to that question ?
Or is there maybe some incentivized...state vs. state competition involved here!
just got off the line with the American chestnut foundation folks.
seem they are almost ready to introduce resistant trees into the wild.
they are back crossed, but will be American chestnuts when done.
when I informed them about the resistant tree in OK. they told me that in every state there's aprox. 10 trees that are resistant.
there's a stand of aprox. 200 chestnut tree out east that seems to be resistant. they are still trying to find out why this stand was not effected. while trees near by were killed off.
Dr. Paul Sisco is one of the staff scientist for ACS.
seem they are almost ready to introduce resistant trees into the wild.
they are back crossed, but will be American chestnuts when done.
when I informed them about the resistant tree in OK. they told me that in every state there's aprox. 10 trees that are resistant.
there's a stand of aprox. 200 chestnut tree out east that seems to be resistant. they are still trying to find out why this stand was not effected. while trees near by were killed off.
Dr. Paul Sisco is one of the staff scientist for ACS.
Google is quicker yet. The Ohio chapter is quite new, and according to the link below, they are still searching for surviving trees. They certainly do not have an advanced breeding program.
The strip mine trees are hybrids of some kind, not 15/16 release trees.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0913chestnut.html
As far as I know, Virginia is the state closest to releasing trees. Dr. Fred Hebard is the TACF geneticist, and he mostly works (I believe) at the Meadowview Farm in VA.
As to whether there are any 100% American trees that are truly blight resistant, that is probably impossible to tell unless you innoculate them with the blight. A tree may grow large and appear resistant only because it has luckily avoided contact with the fungus. If truly resistant trees were known, no one would even think of using Chinese trees as a source of resistance for the recovery program.
One of the best native chestnuts in Maine is dying. The Embden tree, about 60 feet tall and 14 in. DBH appeared perfectly healthy two years ago, and bore a bumper crop of 1000+ burrs last fall. Sadly, about half the circumference of the base of the tree was affected by blight canker at that time. The picture, taken yesterday, shows the base of the tree, now about 80% destroyed by the blight. There are no burrs on the tree, and no foliage in the top 20 feet of the tree. Sometime early next year the fungus will finish girdling the tree and that will be that.
Near the center of the photo you can see the faint orangish wash caused by the fungal fruiting bodies.
In another recent thread on AS people were speculating about blight resistance in certain native trees. This tree, parent to hundreds of trees around the state, and provider of a most excellent chestnut soup last fall, would certainly have been on the short list of naturally resistant trees. Yet once afflicted with the blight, it succumbed just as easily as any other. Fortunately there are apparently unblighted survivors in the same grove that can continue to provide nuts for the breeding program.
Near the center of the photo you can see the faint orangish wash caused by the fungal fruiting bodies.
In another recent thread on AS people were speculating about blight resistance in certain native trees. This tree, parent to hundreds of trees around the state, and provider of a most excellent chestnut soup last fall, would certainly have been on the short list of naturally resistant trees. Yet once afflicted with the blight, it succumbed just as easily as any other. Fortunately there are apparently unblighted survivors in the same grove that can continue to provide nuts for the breeding program.
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