Interesting history - American Chestnut

[Pheroze]

You have to watch the video. I had no idea of the decimation of the tree.

The tragic reason we don't roast chestnuts anymore at Christmas

Beyond the warm glow of nostalgia that The Christmas Song provides, is the weight of a forgotten tragedy

nationalpost.com

 

[thriller]

Yea as a forester I can say this definitively sucks.

 

[thriller]

You can plant hybrid dunstans though they are working towards a 15/16th back road hybrid that is blight resistant. Link below to their website if permitted.

Chestnut Hill Nursery

chestnuthilltreefarm.com

 

[375Fox]

The problem is really a lot bigger than most of us realize. I’ve never seen an American chestnut, but I can only imagine what an important source of wildlife feed this must have been at one time. We have some Chinese chestnut but they aren’t the same, more of a bushy tree. I live in NW PA you used to be able to find chestnut boards occasionally still but much rarer now. Butternut trees all die from a disease. Most of our elm trees have already died many years ago. In the last couple years 90% of our ash trees have died and the rest are dying from emerald ash borer. We have oak wilt now in Pennsylvania, that would really scare me if we were to lose a majority of our oak trees, not much else for a natural food source for wildlife. I’m sure there is more I don’t know of, but it’s really concerning.

 

[Pheroze]

You can plant hybrid dunstans though they are working towards a 15/16th back road hybrid that is blight resistant. Link below to their website if permitted.

Chestnut Hill Nursery

chestnuthilltreefarm.com

It's a tragedy that I never heard of. I love roasted chestnuts, so I have no idea what I have been eating all these years!

 

[Trogon]

40 years ago when I earned my AS degree in Timber Management at a technical college in southeastern Ohio, we would find chestnut tree stumps occasionally. Difficult to imagine they were once a common component in our eastern US forests.
Ash trees have been decimated around here and unfortunately, Amur honeysuckle bush moves in and eventually overwhelms younger forests.
We have had an infestation of the Asian Long-horned beetle east of Cincinnati, any tree that shows evidence of boring gets cut down. I don't know what happens after that.
Very sad state of affairs. These changes to our forests affect many species of wildlife. I believe there needs to be stronger study of plants/shrubs/trees coming in from other countries.
If you're ever in Columbia, South Carolina, visit Congaree National Park, which has the largest section of mostly not logged southeastern swamp forest left in the US. I talked to a researcher who had found poison ivy and other vines that were 100 years old.

 

[Trogon]

Here is a link to a short story of a large chestnut tree found in northern Ohio. This area is surrounded by a lot of farm fields (northwestern Ohio was once a large swamp-the Great Black Swamp-before intensive agriculture entered). This likely saved this tree from the blight.

George J. Pappas

George J. Pappas, 94, of Ipswich, husband of Chrissi G. Pappas and owner of Ipswich Shellfish Co., died March 22, 2008, after a short illness, at his home, surrounded by his family.

www.dispatch.com

 

[CoElkHunter]

Very interesting video and information. Growing up in the western U.S. I have never seen a Chestnut tree or nut and had no idea of how valuable the Chestnut was to both people and wildlife. Hopefully, the blight resistant hybrids can eventually be introduced into the wild again. Thanks for sharing!

 

[thriller]

It's a tragedy that I never heard of. I love roasted chestnuts, so I have no idea what I have been eating all these years!

You have been eating Chinese chestnuts. The fruit is similar but a little smaller it’s the tree that was brought over that had the blight that killed all the American chestnuts. The blight kills American chestnuts before they reach maturity so you can still find stump sprouts in the Appalachians but they never get large enough to reproduce. Also the blight is persistent on red oaks but does not harm them making it almost impossible to bring the tree back as the blight is still around and no known genetic stock is around with resistance. That’s what the 15/16th backcross hybrid is supposed to solve. Supposedly the nuts made for larger healthier deer as the nutrition content of the nut is similar to a potatoe and helped deer remain fat throughout the winter.

 

[Wyatt Smith]

I know where a chestnut tree is but I didn’t know there is two kinds. I’m guessing it the Chinese variety.

 

[thriller]

I know where a chestnut tree is but I didn’t know there is two kinds. I’m guessing it the Chinese variety.

Well it’s even more confusing than that as there are very close relatives called chinquapins that are extremely similar but the blight only wipes out the true American chestnuts

 

[CoElkHunter]

First, the Chinese chestnut’s blight wipes out the American chestnut and now the Chinese virus is wiping us out? I hope this isn’t an omen for things to come! Ha! Ha!

 

[WAB]

A farm up the road planted 10 acres of the hybrid as a specialty crop. They seem to be doing well. I may put 5 or 10 acres in if things continue to go well up the road.

 

[Randy F]

A farm up the road planted 10 acres of the hybrid as a specialty crop. They seem to be doing well. I may put 5 or 10 acres in if things continue to go well up the road.

Please keep us posted on the outcome. I know several landowners (including me) who are more than willing to do the same if it continues to thrive.

 

[Ridgewalker]

Sadly lots of tree blights have been hammering away Here in Colorado. Lots of apple trees have fire blight. Maples suffering. Ash trees mostly dead or dying. Of course the pine beetle devastation! The locust trees have an infestation which causes a sweet flavor in their bark. The squirrels like this and girdle the limbs killing them On and on.
My neighbors are all to cheap to hire an arborist and too lazy to even trim their trees. I hire an arborist every year to care for my trees, but some will not make it. I no longer climb up and trim my own trees, but hire the arborist to.
There are some counties in the mountains that the pine beetle has killed over 90% of the trees. Crazy!