Chestnut trees?

[oakiemac]

I have a buddy who was asked by a land owner to cut down 2 trees which he swears are chestnuts. They are in a yard and are about 30"dbh. He said he could tell by the nuts that these are chestnut trees.
I was under the impression that chestnuts had all died off so I was wondering if this guy is just wacked in the head or could these be actual chestnut trees? I havent seen the trees but he is supposed to give me the logs. I told him to brink a few nuts and some leaves so I could verify. ???

[John Mc]

There are still some pretty good sized American Chestnut trees around that the blight hasn't gotten to yet. You'll also see some stump sprouts from older trees that the blight got to, but the blight would kill the sprouts off LONG before the got to the size you are talking about.

The American Chestnut Foundations (www.acf.org has been developing a blight resistant strain of American Chestnut (cross breeding with Chinese Chestnut, which has some natural resistance, but poor timber form). They think they are finally there with the new generation. If I recall, it's about 1/16 Chinese Chestnut. Their goal is to produce a blight resistant tree which still has the good timber form and all the desirable characteristics of American Chestnut, and reintroduce it across it's native range.

Note: If this landowner really has American Chestnut (and not Horse Chestnut or Chinese Chestnut or some other "wanna be"), he may want to contact ACF. They are actively looking for American Chestnut that they can hand-pollinate, then harvest the nuts to diversify the somewhat limited gene pool they have been working with.

Hard to imagine that at one time, in some areas, 1 in 4 trees were American Chestnut. When the blight wiped them out, whole industries collapsed, as did the population of a wide variety of wildlife species.

I really hope ACF is successful. I'd love to get my hands on a couple of blight resistant nuts.

John Mc

[WDH]

They are likely chinese chestnuts.  If you can get some leaves, and nut burrs containing nuts, we can tell you how to make a definitive identification.

[Ron Wenrich]

A lot can be told with the form of the tree.  The Chinese would have very poor form especially when compared to the American chestnut. 

Our county was hard hit nearly a century ago.  The ACF had a local chapter and they were looking whether any local survived.  There was one that some guy had in his back yard.  It was American. 

Michigan was hit a lot later than us folks here in the East.  There are still pockets of chestnut in the UP and in Wisconsin. 

[John Mc]

Michigan was hit a lot later than us folks here in the East.  There are still pockets of chestnut in the UP and in Wisconsin. 

Still a few good sized ones here and there in Vermont and New Hampshire as well.

My brother in Northampton, Mass. (Western part of the state) had a beautiful American Chestnut in his residential neighborhood. I have no idea how it survived all these years. It seemed to be doing very well... at least until the lady in whose yard it stood decided she was tired of cleaning up the nuts and had it cut down. The rest of the neighborhood was heartbroken. The tree really made the neighborhood. Had the neighbors known, they would have offered to clean up the nuts and hulls for her.

John Mc

[WDH]

What a crying shame. 

[Tom]

Does a Chinese Chestnut have slanted buds?

[oakiemac]

I though all the American Chestnuts were a thing of the past. Good to hear that there are a few still alive. I'll post some pics when I get the leaves and nuts.

[icolquhoun]

I have (4) american chestnuts on my property here in NJ.  All are smallish ,40' tall or less about 4"dbh, and all are in really good shape.
They are still around, as I know firsthand of about 20 more in my immediate area scattered throughout the woods

[John Mc]

icolquhoun - Have they been positively identified as American Chestnut, not Chinese Chestnut (which tends to be shorter) or Horse Chestnut?

If they are healthy, and don't show signs of the blight (or show signs, but are resisting it) ACF may be very interested in talking to you. Are any bearing nuts yet, or are they too young? (I would guess that by 50 ft tall they're mature enough to bear nuts, but I'm no expert.)

John Mc

[Ron Wenrich]

I used to run into some larger chestnuts on occasion.  I remember one that was 12" and one that was 14".  That was back in the '70s.  I don't know if they're still around.

It shouldn't be too unusual to find some stragglers out in the woodlots that were effected a long time ago.  Those sucker sprouts were constantly throwing up shoots, but the blight would get to them.  4" is a pretty good size, but it still can get the blight. 

Several years ago, I was shown a chestnut stump in the NW corner of PA that was about 20" across.  The electric company was putting in a new line and came across the chestnut.  They diverted their line around the tree so as to save it.  The loggers had a different idea. 

[Phorester]

The farther you get out of the Applachains and the eastern forests the less infestation occured in the American chestnut.  Spores from the blight might not have traveled to these outliers because there was not a big enough concentration of chestnut trees for the blight spores to move between them as it was in the main part of the chestnut's natural range. So chestnuts in areas such as Michigan may not have been afected by the blight. So you might have one that big up there.  But I'd guess as other posters have said, I'd be surprised if it's American chestnut.

I routinely see American chestnut sprouts in the mountains of NW Virginia.  Just last month I came across a couple of 1" diameter sprouts on a forest fire we had in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I usually see several every year in different locations.  Most are 1/2" to maybe 2" diameter.  Most already have the blight.

[clww]

Up where I hunt in the Appalachian Mountains on the western side of the state (VA), there are several small groves I go through regularly. The only "blight" these have are the bears! In the fall, I've watched as many as 3 bears at a time bending the 15 to 20 foot tall trees over until they snap the limbs. They pick off the fruit-nuts to eat, but the trees will never amount to anything.

[SwampDonkey]

The bears are in the beech here in the fall. They will break branches and collect the nuts. Looks like a nest up there where they were pawing in branches for nuts. They eat a lot of oak acorns over on the mountain to. In fact they have planted my woodlot with some oak where there were never any oak in the mature timber. My lot was cut off in 1993 so they took hold from bear dung and maybe moose. I haven't a deer around to do much of that. They have to make tracks in the dirt, and there isn't any. Beat to death by moose tracks and I have 1 or 2 bear.

[Ironwood]

Tom, no it does not have slanted buds.  ;)

Ironwood