You Can't Hug It: But You Can Love A Remnant American Chestnut Tree Found In Ohio
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03.26.08
The Director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has revealed that an 89-foot tall, 5-foot in circumference, American Chestnut tree stands in a marsh near Lake Erie. With an eagles nest.
The tree produces fruit, but the seeds aren't viable because there isn't another tree to pollinate it, ....Natural resources director Sean Logan let it slip last week that the tree exists. He said during a meeting of the Ohio Lake Erie Commission that he was going to visit it later that day.
The Dayton Daily News reports that
American chestnut trees once made up about 25 percent of forests in eastern North America.The trees grew up to 120 feet tall and lived up to 600 years.
Its wood was valuable because it was straight, light and rot-resistant.
A fungus that eventually wiped out most of the trees was first found in 1904 in New York.
All American Chestnut trees in New York City were dead by 1912.
By 1950 about 3.5 billion trees — about 90 percent of the species — were dead.
Via::Coshocton Tribune, "Rare chestnut tree in Ohio no longer a state secret" Image credit: IBID
Yippie! Wonder if there's some way to cross-pollinate and bring back some kind of american/not american chestnut hybrid?
I'd love to see a picture of the tree in season with leaves and eagles - bet that would be pretty.
It's nice to know that the loggers in Ohio haven't wiped out all the rare trees...
If the tree could be propogated from cuttings the line should be able to be saved. I believe this has been done with other famous trees. And the sale of seedlings sold to raise money. I would love to buy a few of such an excellent specimen.
The American Chestnut Foundation has been working for years to produce a mostly American-Chinese chestnut hybrid that is blight resistant, and I believe their ultimate goal is to have hybrids that are 13/14ths American, with all the blight resistance of a Chinese chestnut. The Ohio DNR has already contacted the Foundation asking if they want samples from the tree to determine its blight resistance and possible usefulness in the hybrid program.
Yippee indeed! As this tree has survived the onslaught of chesnut blight, it may well offer additional resistance to the gene pool...
The blight does not preclude young chesnuts from springing up (I see them in the woods all the time; it's funny how few people can I.D. them anymore), but it does seem to kill them in the third or fourth year of life, just as they are reaching sexual maturity. I expect that eventually resistance will become an inherent selected trait that will develop dominance in the gene pool...here's hoping...
In the meantime, projects like the cross breeding programs offer another way to deal with this issue; the American elm is being brought back in a similar way. But we must keep in mind that the introduction of non-native genes to the pool may well make the plants unusable by some native fauna (Dr. Doug Tallamy is doing some fascinating work on the effect of non-native plants in ecosystems). It would be preferable to utilize native plant genotypes to repopulate our forests if at all possible, and perhaps trees like this one offer that hope anew...as to gniessen's cuttings idea, we could really speed that with micropropagation (fancy name for plant cloning) if the resistance gene is really that strong in this plant.
Many very old chestnut trees still exist in open space and land trust areas. But they are just a stump with a bush like structure growing out of it. I don't think they can reproduce properly.
Hike the blue trails in Connecticut or local land trusts statewide to see them.
http://www.ctwoodlands.org/bluetrails.html
http://www.newhartfordforests.net/Conservation/CTLandTrusts.html
Interesting story, I live in Ohio and glad to see the tree is here. I see nothing wrong with letting people know the tree exists. I have been looking around your blog and you have some good info here. I have added it to my site Living Green For Life. Check it out when you get a chance.