The American chestnut

[046]

a few pic's of mature tulsa chestnut tree in bloom... taken last season.

 

[moray]

That's quite a specimen, 046. You should spend half an hour one of these days and track down the neighboring tree that is supplying the pollen. Maybe it's even bigger!

The wood of the American chestnut was prized for various purposes and widely used. I know nothing about the wood of the Chinese chestnut, but the form of the Chinese tree is one of its attibutes that the breeders don't like--it is way too branchy, like an apple tree, and doesn't become the tall straight forest giant that the American tree does. Clearly the tall straight tree is going to be more useful for lumber. I like the spreading form, myself, and expect that my trees will adopt that form as they are all out in the open.

 

[buzz sawyer]

That's quite a specimen, 046. You should spend half an hour one of these days and track down the neighboring tree that is supplying the pollen. Maybe it's even bigger!

The wood of the American chestnut was prized for various purposes and widely used. I know nothing about the wood of the Chinese chestnut, but the form of the Chinese tree is one of its attibutes that the breeders don't like--it is way too branchy, like an apple tree, and doesn't become the tall straight forest giant that the American tree does. Clearly the tall straight tree is going to be more useful for lumber. I like the spreading form, myself, and expect that my trees will adopt that form as they are all out in the open.

You took the words right out of my mouth. We have a row of about 12 Chinese Chestnuts on some property. They are healthy but have branched out exactly as you say. Not really much straight wood in any of them but they are probably 24" dbh. They're at least 50 years old.

 

[dvmcmrhp52]

Wow, I hadn't been here for a few days and checked on this, and I like the discussion.

It's late, and I want to respond to some things, but not right now. There's a lot of good info here.

 

[dvmcmrhp52]

The blight fungus doesn't need chestnut trees to survive. I survives just fine as a saprophyte, living in woodpiles and whatnot, and it is now apparently well-entrenched throughout the native range of the chestnut.

A popular misconception evident in this thread is that some native trees are actually blight resistant. Your speculation that such trees simply never were attacked by the blight is almost certainly correct. The American Chestnut Foundation, which is running a giant breeding program in a number of Eastern states, never talks about natural resistance to the blight. The breeding program depends, in fact, on the relatively low probability that any particular tree will succumb to the blight in any particular year. Most of the trees in a breeding orchard will survive the 6 or 8 years necessary to reach maturity and start setting fruit.

Part of the breeding program involves challenging mature trees with the blight by directly innoculating them through a small hole bored in the trunk. Pure American trees never survive this treatment even though their parents were the best natural specimens that could be found in the wild.

I am growing a few in my yard in the hopes that a couple may reach 10 years of age, reach the size of an apple tree, and give me several crops of nuts.

I have to disagree with the statement that there is a relatively low probability that a tree will be infected with blight.
At least here......

Pennsylvania got hit rather hard with blight and it destroyed vast quantities of chestnut trees. Chestnut at one time was the number 1 hardwood coming from this state. That's all history now, even though Pennsylvania is still one of, if not still the number 1 hardwood producing state in the country.

I would tend to agree that healthy trees found in areas where blight was not prevalent could very well have never been exposed, but in areas where it was particularly ravenous, it just doesn't make sense that healthy trees have no resistance. That's just a theory though, and the jury is still out on the resistance deal.

Part of the breeding program and its innoculation of young chestnuts is simply to get to nut production, and replant those seeds for another generation that is slightly less succeptable to blight than the previous. Not unlike vaccines production.

 

[dvmcmrhp52]

You may want to poke around the Ohio DNR website. There was talk about a nursery in a north central state park. Dont know what came out of it.

Thanks, I'll do that.

 

[dvmcmrhp52]

This is probably the right way to say it. Some trees succumb more rapidly than others, and so may be slightly more resistant. Big healthy trees, on the other hand, have probably never been attacked. The best evidence that American trees cannot survive an attack is the experience of the breeding program. Challenged trees are evaluated a few months after innoculation to see how large the canker has grown. Pure Chinese trees are the best--the canker remains small and the tree walls off the fungus. Pure American trees are worst--the canker is much larger and doesn't stop expanding. Hybrids can fall anywhere between the two. The best hybrids are assumed to still have both (or maybe 3) resistance genes donated by the original Chinese ancestor, but hybrid resistance, as one might expect, is never as good as that in a pure Chinese tree. The best hybrid, after all, has only half the resistance genes of a pure Chinese tree, as the other half came from the American parent.



It probably didn't stay isolated, it just wasn't attacked. I got to walk around a breeding orchard in Maine last fall with some of the folks from the Maine chapter of TACF and with Dr. Fred Hebard, the chief scientist working on the recovery program. His quick eye picked out a blighted branchlet on a little 10-foot tree, and he cut it off with a pocket knife. Red fruiting bodies from the fungus were plainly visible on the bark of the afflicted branch. But he treated the episode as perfectly normal and showed no concern for the fate of the rest of the trees. The blight is everywhere, as the TACF people tell me. Apparently it is not that easy for the fungus to get underneath the bark and begin its attack. This will happen to only a small proportion of trees in any given year--if this were not true the breeding orchards could never produce fruiting trees. A lucky tree can make it for 30 years or more. But if the fungus does establish itself under the bark, the tree will succumb just like any other. It's all a matter of when your number comes up.[/QUOTE]


The tree I had in New York state was at least that old, and most likely a bit older. The stand of trees it was part of, were there in an aerial photo from 1952, and I owned it until 1997, While the surrounding acreage was all pasture. Most of the pasture had reverted by the time I owned it, but again, this tree was part of an original forested tract.

I will say that I agree with the statement that one shouldn't confuse resistance to immunity. I don't believe that American chestnuts are immune, but I do believe some are "more resistant."

 

[dvmcmrhp52]

Thanks again - some very enlightening posts!

Next question - how does the wood of the Chinese species compare to the American species?

My understanding is that the quality of wood from the chinese chestnut is not up to the quality of the American, but I couldn't testify to that. Part of the problem as has been mentioned, is the fact that it is a more branching tree.

 

[moray]

I have to disagree with the statement that there is a relatively low probability that a tree will be infected with blight.
At least here......

Pennsylvania got hit rather hard with blight and it destroyed vast quantities of chestnut trees...

I don't want to quibble too much about the fine points, but it is worth making the following point. When the blight was first roaring through the eastern forests killing millions of chestnut trees, blight fungus spores were probably amazingly abundant in those same forests, possibly hundreds or thousands of times more abundant than today. Just because the fungus today is "everywhere" doesn't mean it is common. The likelihood that any particular tree will get infected in any particular year, all other things being equal, would be proportional to the abundance of blight spores in the local environment. The original epidemic was like a forest fire rushing down the Appalachians--any tree in the way was very likely to get burned. The fire is now out, but there are still a few smoldering embers here and there. Any tree in the area has a pretty good chance now of not getting burned. But give the tree enough time and even low odds will catch up to it.

 

[dvmcmrhp52]

I don't want to quibble too much about the fine points, but it is worth making the following point. When the blight was first roaring through the eastern forests killing millions of chestnut trees, blight fungus spores were probably amazingly abundant in those same forests, possibly hundreds or thousands of times more abundant than today. Just because the fungus today is "everywhere" doesn't mean it is common. The likelihood that any particular tree will get infected in any particular year, all other things being equal, would be proportional to the abundance of blight spores in the local environment. The original epidemic was like a forest fire rushing down the Appalachians--any tree in the way was very likely to get burned. The fire is now out, but there are still a few smoldering embers here and there. Any tree in the area has a pretty good chance now of not getting burned. But give the tree enough time and even low odds will catch up to it.

I guess I can accept that.

 

[doorstop]

We have two chestnut trees that we started from seed. My wife put a half dozen chestnuts in the ground about 10 years age.. They all started and when they were 4-5 feet tall moved from starting place. Two were planted in our back yard and the rest in a wooded area. The two started making nuts last year. The funny thing is that they ripen about a month apart.

 

[Wood Scrounge]

When I was growing up my grandparents would tell me stories how chestnuts had sustained them through one particularly hard winter on their farm in northern PA. a few years ago I went to the land were the farm once stood, I found quite a few small chestnut trees.

 

[S Mc]

Wood scrounge, do you have any family pictures that might reveal some of the old trees? How special those would be to hold on to. It is so easy to not realize the significance of what might be in the background in the family photo album.

Just a thought....

Sylvia

 

[Wood Scrounge]

Wood scrounge, do you have any family pictures that might reveal some of the old trees? How special those would be to hold on to. It is so easy to not realize the significance of what might be in the background in the family photo album.

Just a thought....

Sylvia

I did actually find a black and white one a few years ago, it's a little hard to make out that they are indeed Chestnuts but grandma had written on the back "Chestnut trees".

 

[dvmcmrhp52]

When I was growing up my grandparents would tell me stories how chestnuts had sustained them through one particularly hard winter on their farm in northern PA. a few years ago I went to the land were the farm once stood, I found quite a few small chestnut trees.

Where abouts in northern Pa.?

I spend a good bit of time up north.

 

[Wood Scrounge]

Close to union dale, near Elk mountian, the family owned quite a bit of land up there as I understand it.

 

[Wood Scrounge]

Interesting article on "new" chestnut trees.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/fron...apling__mighty_hope_at_Independence_Hall.html

 

[NC4TN]

See my previous post here:

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=111518

Like the post says though, they get 8 to 15 years old and them die out, although I have since spotted 3 more on another place in the mountains that I own, with a 100 or so burrs laying on the ground. The genetics appear to be in place if they can develop enough.

I might mention that the trees that I have found that have matured enough to produce burrs have been on a WESTERN facing slope. Dryness may have something to do with this.

Hats off to the folks who are doing the successful outcrossing.

 

[Geese]

The folks at the place below are doing some interesitng things with chestnuts and hazel nuts.

My folks bought some Hazels from them a few years back. They are producing at this time.


http://www.badgersett.com/

 

[scubadude1188]

There's a really good book on that talks about the history of the American Chestnut and everything that has been done to try to save it. The title is American Chestnut: Life, Death, and Rebirth of the Perfect Tree. I really enjoyed it and it gave me a new perspective on all of the invasive diseases and pests that are attaching our trees.