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Chestnut

Started by Don P, February 06, 2002, 07:19:00 PM

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Don P

I'm not sure if this is allowed but it is a good passage from a book, "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. Its an account of his hike on the AT.

There has never been another tree like it. Rising a hundred feet from the forest floor, its soaring boughs spread out in a canopy of incomparable lushness, an acre of leaves per tree, a million or so in all. Though only half the height of the tallest eastern pines, the  American chestnut had a weight and mass and symmetry that put it in another league. At ground level, a full sized tree would be ten feet through its bole, more than twenty feet around. I have seen a photograph, taken at the start of this century, of people picnicking in a grove of chestnuts in what is now the Jefferson National Forest. It is a happy Sunday party, all the picnickers in heavy clothes, the ladies with clasped parasols, the men with bowler hats and walrus moustaches, all handsomely arrayed on a blanket in a clearing, against a backdrop of slanting shafts of light and trees of unbelievable grandeur. The people are so tiny, so preposterously out of scale to the trees around them, as to make you wonder for a moment if the picture has been manipulated as a kind of joke, like the old postcards that show watermelons as big as barns or an ear of corn that completely fills a wagon under the droll legend "A TYPICAL IOWA FARM SCENE" But that is simply the way it was-the way it was over tens of thousands of square miles of hill and cove, from the Carolinas to New England. And it is all gone now.

     In 1904, a keeper at the Bronx Zoo in New York noticed that the zoo's handsome chestnuts had become covered in small orange cankers of an unfamiliar type. Within days they began to sicken and die. By the time scientists identified the source as an  Asian  fungus called Endothia parasitica, probably introduced with a shipment of trees or infected lumber from the Orient, the chestnuts were dead and the fungus had escaped  into the great sprawl of the Appalachians, where one tree in every four was a chestnut.

   For all its mass, a tree is a remarkably delicate thing. All of its internal life exists within three paper thin layers of tissue-the phloem, xylem, and cambium-just beneath the bark, which together form a moist sleeve around the dead heartwood. However tall it grows, a tree is just a few pounds of living cells thinly spread between roots and leaves. These three diligent layers of cells perform all the intricate science and engineering needed to keep a tree alive, and the efficiency with which they do it is one of the wonders of life. Without noise or fuss, every tree in a forest lifts massive volumes of water-several hundred gallons in the case of a large tree on a hot day-from its roots to its leaves, where it is returned to the atmosphere. Imagine the din and commotion, the clutter of machinery, that would be needed for a fire department to raise a similar volume of water.

     And lifting water is just one of  the many jobs that the phloem, xylem, and cambium perform. They also manufacture lignin and cellulose: regulate the storage and production of tannin, sap, gum, oils, and resins; dole out minerals and nutrients; convert starches into sugars for future growth (which is where maple syrup comes into the picture); and goodness knows what else. But because all this is happening in such a thin layer, it also leaves the tree terribly vulnerable to invasive organisms.  To combat this trees have formed elaborate defense mechanisms. The reason a rubber tree seeps latex when cut is this is its way of saying "Not tasty. Nothing here for you. Go away." Trees can also deter destructive creatures like caterpillars by flooding their leaves with tannin, which makes the leaves less tasty and so inclines the caterpillar to look elsewhere. When infestations are particularly severe, some trees can even communicate the fact. Some species of oak release a chemical that tells other oaks in the vicinity that an attack is under way. In response, the neighboring oaks step up their tannin production the better to withstand the coming onslaught.

     By such means, of course does nature tick along. The problem arises when a tree encounters an attacker for which evolution has left it unprepared, and seldom has a tree been more helpless against an invader than the American chestnut against Endothia parasitica. It enters a chestnut effortlessly, devours the cambium cells, and positions itself for attack on the next tree before the tree has the faintest idea, chemically speaking, what hit it. It spreads by means of spores, which are produced in the hundreds of millions in each canker. A single woodpecker can transfer a billion spores on one flight between trees. At the height of the American chestnut blight, every woodland breeze would loose spores in uncountable trillions to drift in a pretty, lethal haze on to neighboring hillsides. The mortality rate was 100 percent. In just over thirty-five years the American chestnut became a memory. The Appalachians alone lost over four billion trees, a quarter of its cover, in a generation.

     A great tragedy, of course. But how lucky, when you think about it, that these diseases are at least species specific. Instead of a chestnut blight or Dutch elm disease or dogwood anthracnose, what if it were just a tree blight-something indiscriminate and unstoppable that swept through whole forests? In fact there is. It's acid rain.

lylera

They keep trying! Sometimes get up to 6 or 7 inches in my woods before the blight gets them, one even had nuts, but they  were infertile, maybe because they need to be cross polinated with another tree.The American Chestnut foundation has a farm in Virginia, where they are trying to crossbreed American & Chineese,and I think Euoropean chestnut trees, to build up imunity,but it takes a long time, hope they are successful. The ash has a disease in this area,maybe that's acid rain    Lyle

Bud Man

Don P.--- Have Faith !!  EP only got 99.9% of the American Chestnuts, the other .01% are in the hands of folks with the same type biological minds that whipped Polio, Smallpox, and even the effects of the deadly mosquitos of the world.  Acid Rain ?  We'll whip that to!!   At this very moment In Louisiana,  those same type folks are following up on a reliable sighting of Ivory-Billed woodpeckers. Maybe in 5 - 10 -20 -,-,-,  years our Grands or Great Grands will again picnic under a mighty American Chestnut and in the canopy of it will be an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker,  and win some one mentions Acid Rain people will have a puzzeled look on their face.
The groves were God's first temples.. " A Forest Hymn"  by.. William Cullen Bryant

Don P

Boy, ya gotta hope. The passage came to mind as I was walking back up the hill from the mill this afternoon (it snowed). Theres a nice old stump in the woods below the house, I leave em, kinda sacred. A couple around here have made it to bearing, no babies tho. I've heard when in bloom it looked like snow on the mountain they were so thick.I'm no geneticist but it sounds like they cross with Chinese then backcross to American to try to weed out the bush habit while keeping the resistance. The last I heard on the crossbreeding is they were up to 15/16 American but had hit a genetic snag,the resistance was carried across more genes than at first thought.  I went for a walk in our little state park nearby last week. The land was donated by a judge in the community who was a voice for the tree. They had cleared an area and are going to try a planting. The swollen bases on scarlet oak are from the same fungi I've been told. The wood is a joy to work, stable, decay resistant, beautiful. Sure would love to see it as a timber tree again.




Bud Man

Don  P.---I suspect you've visited this site but for others try:     http://member.aol.com/BCarley978/chestnut.htm    :Great site , Your  topic was  broader  than than meets the eyes first glance.
The groves were God's first temples.. " A Forest Hymn"  by.. William Cullen Bryant

L. Wakefield

   Budman, FWIW that link didn't load for me.

   Interesting the description of the fungus. Down on the farm in WV we also had a set of whips that would grow up just so high, then die- but I didn't see any orange stuff. Instead I sae that once they started getting 'mature' bark, that's when they'd die off. The bark would curl back and the thing would just dry out.

   The last visit it looked as though the whole thing had succumbed. It set on the peak of a pretty dry ridge- may have succumbed to lack of water. May not have been the right species- but I had been told it was. Leaves similar to the Chinese chestnut only bigger.    

   I loved that description of the living portion of the tree as such a thin film compared to the huge infrastructure. That is what is so excellent about this forum- you constantly get to look beneath the surface.    lw
L. Wakefield, owner and operator of the beastly truck Heretik, that refuses to stay between the lines when parking

DaveA

I'm new to this forum and want to share something I have had the good fortune to see.  I live in Central Wisconsin.  Near here there is a school forest with a small group (approx. 10-15) of mature chestnut trees. Some of those trees are 2-3 feet across the base and estimated at close to 80-100 feet tall. Many seedlings and sapplings also in that area.  I had the opportunity to collect and dry some of their dropped seeds.  (The seeds are now 6 young trees about 3 feet in height).  Hopefully, they will grow to maturity someday.

Additionally, there is another rather large group (approx. 4-5 acres) of chestnut trees that have been carefully guarded to protect them from disease and the public.  They too are located in west central Wisconsin.

Perhaps there are other sites I am not aware of or located back in the woods that no-one has made mention of.

Have we been fortunate enough to have escaped most of the blight?    
Live every day to it's fullest.  It may be you last.

swampwhiteoak

You're right LW, they usually die when the bark starts getting fissured (broken and mature).  There is usually a little orange in between the fissures, though.  

Biggest Chestnut I've ever seen is about 16" dbh in a state forest nearby.  I understand that some parts of Michigan never got the blight.  Upon preview, I see DaveA says WI doesn't have it either.  When I was in KY the biggest I ever saw was 4-6" dbh.

I know there are isolated trees that never happened to get sick, my understanding is this is nothing but chance as none have been shown to be genetically immune.  


Don P

Welcome Dave,
Yes you are in the area that escaped the blight, glad to hear you got some viable seed. There are also a few in the arboretum at UW that are smaller than what you describe but still very nice. I was there in fall 2000 and they were bearing heavily 8). That's a really nice place if you're ever in the neighborhood.

DaveA

DonP....  Thanks for the response.  I know of a gentleman who lives in Illinois that collects seeds, dries them, replants and grows chestnut trees and gives them away to anyone who wants them.  He is a "pharmasist" by trade but growing trees is a hobby with him.  (Nice guy!)  8)
I am unable to lacate his email just now but if I come across it, I will post it.
Live every day to it's fullest.  It may be you last.

Jeff

Welcome Dave! We're neighbors!  Instead of posting his email why not invite him to the forum?
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Phil

I had a chance to tour The American Chestnut Foundation's research farm in Meadowview, VA a few years back.  It's a pretty inspiring place.

I've also heard that Virginia Tech is studying blight resistance in the pure American chestnut.  When they hear of trees that have somehow survived, they collect seeds and try to figure out "why," I think.

The wood is still big business for some folks.  I know of at least one company that collects old chestnut lumber from homes and barns, reworks it a bit and puts it back on the market.

Can't do that with plastic and particleboard!

Corley5

In my work with the Mi. DNR we planted some Chestnut seeds in the Jordan River Valley and some in the Pigeon River State Forest.  The ones in the Pigeon never grew but the last time I looked at the ones in the Jordan there were whips 7' feet tall.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Bud Man

Jeff B--Don P--LW , et all , Search  The NET under  American Chestnut--Wealth of info concerning all aspects of chestnut --past --present and   "Future "  Spend the 10 - 15 minutes--  Their's more here than just info on Chestnuts. On the bright side Chestnuts are one of the fastest growing species to reach maturity levels and when the genetics folks or the tissue culturalists find the solution hopefully it can be reversed quickly.  
The groves were God's first temples.. " A Forest Hymn"  by.. William Cullen Bryant

Ron Wenrich

About 10 yrs ago, I was doing a vegetation study on power lines for West Penn Power.  The area was in NW Pennsylvania.  They had recently put in a line to a particleboard plant.  

Their forester had something he wanted to show me on the line.  When they were putting, they came across a 20" chestnut.  The electric company went to the effort to move the right-of-way around the chestnut and to protect.

Then they had a logger cut in the right-of-way.  Somehow, that chestnut disappeared.  I got to see the stump.

The Chestnut Foundation is always looking for native chestnuts for breeding stock.  These trees are usually resistant to the blight.

They had some people call in on a local radio show.  Turns out, several people have some as large as 26" in their backyards.  These are American and not Chinese chestnuts.  So, there are more chestnut out there than most would believe.

In 1900, 90% of the trees in my county were chestnut.  I used to see some impressive stumps, but a lot of them are now gone.  The largest chestnut I've seen locally, in the wild, is about 14".

Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Don P

Boy talk about a comedy of errors....we went up to where I know of a REALLY heavy infestation, frolicking fungus or whatever, yesterday. Had gotten new floppies for the camera. Went to take the pics...and I hadn't gotten the right kind ::).
So I went back up today armed with the right one...and the battery died :D ,don't know why it read 42 minutes left yesterday and has a 3 minute shutdown even if I forgot and left it on...oh well. There is some orange up there I'll get back next week. I got one shot, this was a sprout on the trail on the way up with a pretty bad canker.




 It was worth the trip, the scouts were bringing in the sleds for their Klondike race, the boys are the dogs, if you recall the snow here ain't here, and when I asked the scoutmaster why they just had plywood runners without any strapping, he just winked and said they were harder to pull that way :D

L. Wakefield

   Yep, that's the stuff. Nasty, deadly. (I mean the blight, not the Klondike..)   lw
L. Wakefield, owner and operator of the beastly truck Heretik, that refuses to stay between the lines when parking

RavioliKid

My father and I listened to "A Walk in the Woods" on tape while driving over the Christmas holidays. It made the miles fly by! I recommend it to anyone who needs a book on tape (or CD) for a long drive.

 :P
RavioliKid

Ron Scott

American Chestnut Tree. A rare find within a red pine harvest area. Brown pine harvest 6/03.


~Ron

Ron Wenrich

How big is that one?  Too bad that the American Chestnut Foundation doesn't have a branch in Michigan.  The closest is Indiana and is in association with Purdue.  They might be interested in that one.

It would sure be nice if it was a 100% American.  I was told a lot of what we see in the woods has some European and Chinese cross, since there is so much of that type of pollen around.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

woodmills1

I second the notion on the Bryson book it really is a good read.
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

Ron Scott

Chestnut Tree. The lone tree has two stems. The larger stem is 18" dbh and the smaller is 12" dbh. Note the many chestnut burs on the ground.


~Ron

Ron Scott

Burs From the Chestnut. Fallen chestnuts from the tree above. Brown pine harvest area; 6/03.


~Ron

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