American Chestnut CooperatorsÔø‡Ôø‡ Foundation
2009 Newsletter
Send your report via accf-online.org/greport.htm or to
Forest Service Road 708, Newport, Virginia 24128
Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:
This year we take you on a virtual tour of the Martin American Chestnut Planting on Salt Pond Mountain, Virginia, at 3,500 feet elevation. Gary Griffin and John Elkins made the original planting in 1976 on land given to Virginia Tech by Ruth and Miles Horton for American chestnut research and dedicated to the memory of Miss Flossie Martin, a biology teacher who awakened in Miles a lifelong interest in science.
Gary and John laid out the planting holes with 10 foot spacing: 13 rows of nine and one row of six. They planted one-year- old all-American first-generation intercross seedlings, representing four of the parent trees which at that time had passed blight resistance tests: Floyd, Gault, MacDaniels and Weekley. Among these intercrosses they also planted, for reference purposes, open-pollinated chestnuts of two kinds: Wisconsin seedlings from outside the range of the blight fungus and Pease 16 seedlings from West Virginia. They planted at least one of each open-pollinated variety per row.
The planting site slopes steeply toward the southwest with woods on the other three sides. The clearing was made by the previous owners to grow feed corn. After the limestone-based soil had been played out, it became a hay field. This plot was planted before Gary had made his extensive forest ecology studies, so we did not realize that we were creating a worst-case scenario site: not the preferred north to eastern exposure, but open to severe winter stress and late freezes in spring, the wrong soil type, not acid and not well-drained in spite of the slope, and the upper layer of soil was seriously depleted, leaving available fertility well below the surface.
It was a struggle to get them established. At first, we used compost and newspaper mulch to improve the soil, and for many springs and summers we carried water to each seedling. For years they grew very poorly, at less than half the normal rate, until the taproots finally reached deep below the surface soil and into more fertile ground. Then they took off. In 1988, with 78 of the original 117 surviving, Gary and John inoculated all chestnuts over 1.5 inches in diameter at breast height (DBH) with a killing strain of the blight fungus to test for blight resistance. The Wisconsin trees died within a month or two; the Pease did a little better. Gary and John observed canker growth over a two-year period, and judged three of the intercrosses to have resistance equal to or better than the parent trees.
John Elkins made some second-generation intercrosses and planted 12 of the seedlings to fill spaces in the rows in 1993. Over the last eight years, we have filled most of the other spaces by direct-seeding chestnuts. In 2000 and 2004, we planted controlled, first-generation intercrosses representing three more parent trees. In 2005 through 2008 we planted open- pollinated chestnuts from a plot which contains only blight resistant chestnuts and represents five original sources of blight resistance. These nuts are the same as those we have been sending to growers in recent years; most of them may be second- or third-generation natural intercrosses.
Walking through the Martin American Chestnut Planting today, you see seven chestnuts over 30 feet tall, with the tallest at about 44 feet, six chestnuts over 20 feet tall, and another six over 10 feet tall; these are original survivors, 1993 seedlings, several of my grafts which date from 1995, and a few are seedlings from nuts where the planting spot was much improved on the second try. Thirty-four more chestnuts, ranging between 9 feet and 6 inches tall, are mostly from direct-seeded nuts; one is a new graft this year. You will also see many more chestnuts, between 10 and two inches in diameter have been cut at the base and are making stump sprouts; these are for future grafting opportunities. Every chestnut smaller than 30 feet tall is enclosed in a wire cage, because the trees are a target for deer rubs which easily strip the smooth bark, and of course, deer eat unprotected sprouts.
You probably would expect to find American chestnuts that are 25 to 30 years old to be much taller than 44 feet, and you would be correct. Leaving aside their slow start, the relatively small stature of the older chestnut stems in this planting is mostly due to cutting; many are second or third shoots to emerge when the previous trunk was cut at the base because it was seriously disfigured or had the top killed by blight.
A new shoot on an established root system has a greatly improved chance to reach a larger size before its first blight attack. Therefore, because of the severity of conditions on this site, we have given many of the original chestnuts two or three chances to make a better blight resistance test score. However, the first selections are still the best, so this summer we hired a tree service to cut at ground level 52 trees that did not pass inspection. This leaves the orchard with only blight-resistant chestnuts able to produce pollen and nuts. It also greatly increased the sunlight available to stimulate more rapid growth on the smaller chestnuts and for next yearÔø‡Ôø‡s grafts.
This yearÔø‡Ôø‡s Martin American open-pollinated nuts will represent various combinations among six original parents (Floyd, Gault, MacDaniels, Thompson, Nathan Pease, and Ragged Mt.) in first-, second- or third-generation natural intercrosses. Six additional original sources of blight resistance are represented in the seedlings and grafts which will flower here in the near future.
In addition to the harsh environment and continuous blight infections, this site has weathered two serious insect problems. The ambrosia beetle attacked in 2006 and again in 2008, both times killing or setting back by a few years each, from two to four of our grafts. So we must keep a close lookout each March for the telltale pinholes on the lower half of stems smaller than 3 inches DBH and be prepared to spray all trunks of that size with Permethrin. A much bigger threat by gypsy moth was stopped this May by a large countywide spraying effort followed by almost two months of above-normal rains which appear to have interrupted reproduction of the pest.
The stress factors on this site are not completely unrelieved: because of the poor upper soil, weeds do not seriously compete with the young seedlings, and because the soil is very compact, voles have not created the general nuisance we battle in the richer and well-drained forest sites. About five years ago, the Mary Moody Northern Foundation purchased a large block of mountain land which includes the Martin American Chestnut Planting and three smaller related chestnut plots. This foundation is deeply concerned in environmental projects that engage the local public, in other words, exactly our kind of folks; they make our work easier by keeping the plots mown.
MOST FREQUENT PROBLEMS
Poor germination is most often a result of improper storage and can be avoided by planting chestnut seed when it arrives. In the north, however, where heavy snow covers the ground for a month or so, the chestnuts may be better off stored as follows: put the seednuts in a mixture of 50/50 sand and peat moss, very slightly damp, inside a plastic peanut butter jar, in which several small holes have been drilled for air exchange; then bury the jar under about 4 inches of soil inside your first planting hole, well-marked with flagging. Plant the seed by February.
Poor transplant success is common for American chestnuts because the long taproot is easily injured; avoid this problem by direct-seeding the nuts in their chosen site as described in the handout which accompanies the seed.
Yellow or
yellow-green foliage that is smaller than normal indicates poor
seedling health. In or near the
Yellowish, unhealthy foliage may also indicate that voles are attacking the root system; this is common in rich, well-drained woodland soils, new clearcuts and old orchards. Probe inside cages with a stick. Wherever it sinks suddenly apply a vole poison in the tunnel. Last yearÔø‡Ôø‡s trial of Molemax and other smelly deterrents failed; poison is necessary for vole control. Voles kill chestnuts is surely as a root rot.
Tree shelters of all descriptions, vented or not, are unsuitable for protecting American chestnut seedlings. The only exception to this rule is the 8-inch tall, short shelter which we sink 3 inches into the soil in the middle of each wire cage for first-season protection of direct-seeded chestnuts. The taller shelters are too small in diameter to accommodate healthy chestnut leaf and stem growth; they are also very efficient blight incubators, and, just like a dense weed growth inside protection cages, they hide the first signs of blight, which often occur at the base and rapidly kill seedlings smaller than an inch in diameter.
Basal cankers, if detected early, may be controlled by making a mud pack to cover the canker with moist soil. This can give the seedling another chance to reach 1.5 inches in diameter, the minimum size for blight resistance expression to be useful.
2009 CHESTNUT DISTRIBUTION
Our directors have discussed the many pros and cons of seedling distribution, and have decided to discontinue it. Henceforth we shall distribute only seednuts. This should decrease my data entry duties by half, leaving more time to spend in the research plots.
If you have already signed a copy of the enclosed agreement and your information is unchanged, please write, NO CHANGE boldly across that side, and fill in your nut request. If you have already reported, please write REPORTED ONLINE boldly on the reverse side, and fill in your member number from the envelope label. This will save more office time, thanks very much. Everyone with a Grower Agreement and current Report on file may order 10 chestnut seeds.
Most of the 2009 chestnuts we will be sending to growers in late October will come from the two plots which contain only blight-resistant chestnuts, and the chestnuts collected in other plots will come from blight-resistant mother trees, the ones which are nearest to the best pollen sources. Nevertheless, blight resistance may not be regularly inherited among the progeny. We still rely on annual reports from you to learn how many and what percentage of these nuts express blight resistance.
HARVEST
This year we guess the harvest may begin around September 16 on the early trees; therefore, help will probably be needed most the week of September 21, and possibly also the first half of the following week. To help out, please e-mail Lucille at allaccf@gmail.com (my new address), mention the date when you plan to come, and I will get back to you. We harvest in the morning, usually beginning at nine. Harvest helpers may request additional chestnuts if they bring their own collection bag and are prepared to take chestnuts in the burs to store and process at home.
ACCF REPORTS
The total American chestnut seedlings and nuts from the 2008 harvest which were planted by our associates and cooperating growers this past winter and spring was 2,846.
The total American chestnuts surviving in Virginia research plots, not including the chestnuts cut back at ground level for grafting stock, is 483 grown from seedlings and seednuts, of which 66 are new this year, and 80 grafts. As of November 7, we have received reports from 139 growers of 3,846 chestnuts surviving in their ACCF plots.
OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS
Many thanks to UNC freshmen, Elizabeth Cooper and Caroline Robinson, who volunteered two days of their fall break to make a new chestnut research plot. They constructed 40 wire cages, drove stakes and broke new, difficult ground to dig 40 18-inch holes; the second day, they worked in a driving rain to complete the job. We planted there by direct-seeding 36 chestnuts representing the next step up in our blight-resistance breeding program. Twenty-nine of these seedlings are growing well.
Thanks again, to Carol Croy, Virginia Shepherd and George Richardson who helped us to harvest the chestnuts we sent to growers in 2008.
More thanks to the National Wild Turkey Federation which has continued generous support of our work.
Whenever we plant a nut or make a graft, we are committed to defending that chestnut like a mother hen, her chicks. Until it is big enough to express blight resistance (1.5 inches DBH), we give every benefit of protection and assistance, sometimes including second and third chances to demonstrate a better reaction to blight infection. But science must trump sentiment or there could be no progress in blight-resistance breeding.
In your own American chestnut project, you may elect to follow the same plan of continuous improvement for blight resistance, and you will have at least 20 years, perhaps 30 years, head start, as compared to where we began in the 1970Ôø‡Ôø‡s. Or you may have a different goal, such as adding American chestnuts for their mast crop, to support more game on your lands. In this case, you still must defend the young chestnuts till they develop robust root systems, so that stems killed by blight can be rapidly replaced by new stems and the nut crop may be dependable, even though nut-bearing individuals within the planting may vary from year to year. Such a goal does not require cutting out any of your chestnuts, so it may be achieved within 10 to 12 years if the site is rich and the chestnuts are kept in full sun.
The nut-crop plan is flawed only if you have extensive managed woodlands and hope that nuts from your original stand may seed future clearings as more space becomes available. In this case, your seednuts would be inferior to those produced in a chestnut planting that has been managed like a research plot, for continuous improvement of blight resistance.
Of course, the choice is yours. We thank you again for your donations, and look forward to your annual reports.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president, retired Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, Raleigh, NC
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, McEwen, TN
Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts
American Chestnut Cooperators'
Foundation
2008 Newsletter
Send your report via our Online Report Form
or to
Forest Service Road 708, Newport, Virginia 24128
Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:
In special thanks to the many volunteers who have helped us reclaim the
Lesesne research plot, we
feature a virtual tour.
The Lesesne is surrounded by state forest lands of the same name which
were donated by the DuPont family to the Virginia Dept of Forestry (VDF) for American chestnut
research. Al Dietz,
cooperating with the VDF, planted here in 1969, on a gentle
south-facing slope at the foot of the Blue Ridge in deep fertile loam
soils. His original planting was about 10 acres, divided into
three squares with 40 rows and columns in each square and the chestnuts
planted on 10 foot centers. These chestnuts had been exposed to
ionizing radiation in an experiment aiming to induce mutations
favorable to blight resistance.
Over the years, nearly all of Al's chestnuts have died from blight, and
then from deer browsing the new shoots and from intense competition of
other trees when state funds for maintenance were cut. With the
exception of the roadways leading up to and between the squares and the
western edge of the middle square the planting disappeared in a tangle
of vines and other trees.
The western edge was saved because there in 1980, Bruce Given and John Elkins of our informal
American chestnut research group had worked with Tom Dierauf (VDF)
to graft large survivors into the stocks of the blight-killed
chestnuts. In 1982 and '83, the first blight cankers on the
grafts were inoculated with a mixture of hypovirulet (weak)
strains of the blight fungus obtained from Jack Elliston in Connecticut.
Research conducted by Virginia Tech
graduate students, supported by the ACCF has shown some of these
hypovirulent strains have spread, over the past 26 years, throughout
the grafted trees. These grafts inspired me to add to the
collection.
My scope was quite limited until John
Buschmann approached the VDF to enlarge our edge by clearing an
acre, or the first 24 columns on the west side. Then, in 2002, a National Wild Turkey Federation
grant made it possible for us to clear and plant 5 rows of
second-generation all-Americans (Ruth x Miles) along the downhill,
southeast side. The following winter, once again the VDF pitched
in to clear the rest of the square, making planting room in which we
have established several additional breeding lines by direct-seeding
nuts beginning in 2003; they are first- and second-generation
intercrosses among six different parent trees.
In each case, before clearing, we flagged all the chestnut stems to be
saved for resistance testing; most failed the tests. On the
western side we left many failed chestnuts to witness the continuous
cycles of death by blight followed by regeneration via root sprouts; we
use the others for grafting stock.
Mainly I graft the parent trees whose progeny we have been planting
here, but also, some related chestnuts, such as "Ed", with its first
blight canker swollen, a very strong-growing volunteer from a
Virginia Tech breeding orchard, and "Joyce" an advanced intercross
(Parent x F1) made by John Elkins in 1993, which has thrived with
blight infection in a severe environment.
Because foresters don't like to cut down beautiful trees, in addition
to all the chestnuts, ranging in age from one to 49 years old, there
are four large tulip poplars and one oak among the upper eastern rows
and in the space between the upper and lower rows. Probably
around 20 years old and up to 60 feet tall, they illustrate the site's
growth potential.
We have kept to the approximate 10 foot spacing between chestnuts, but
more than doubled the space between rows at VDF request for vehicle
travel. In the center of the square, the VDF bulldozed the
cleared trash trees to fill a big dip; a similar dump is at the
beginning of the first row at the bottom of this dip. These
places have become havens for birds, blackberries, and snakes. In
rows two through 5, many chestnuts planted in the dip died of apparent
root rot, and we have left most of these spaces planted in grass.
We also left a broad space between the upper and lower rows and a
lesser one between the western side and the eastern rows. These
are buffer zones against the spread of root disease.
In spite of watering, many of the seedlings planted in 2002 struggled
for several years, with yellowish-green
leaves and little or no growth increments, and many of them died
in their first two years, before we discovered that Phytophthora was
a problem here. We can guess how this soil-born disease may have
been introduced because it is endemic
in Piedmont soils, and the Lesesne is near the edge of the
Piedmont: it was probably transported here on the tires of
vehicles that had driven in infected fields or roadways.
After one of the big inspirational chestnut grafts died from root rot, Gary
cordoned off the area around the two nearby grafts whose root systems
were in contact with the dead tree to ward off foot travelers and
inhibit deer. Inside the cages where small seedlings had died,
apparently from root rot, we removed them, treated the soil with
SubdueMax fungicide drench and planted grass. We
also spread grass clippings around the outside of cages and sprinkled
gypsum inside the cages of nearby seedlings to help control the spread
of this disease.
These measures cannot save the big chestnuts with extensive, deep root
systems, so Gary has been treating them with a combination of
fungicides, painted on the lower bark (where Phytophthora can
cause collar rot) or injected into the stem from whence it works down
to the roots. These treatments are experimental, but they have
been used with success in avocado orchards. He also covered the
soil at the base of the trunks with limestone gravel, to prevent
splashing of soil onto the bark during heavy rains. Other
measures to contain the spread of Phytophthora:
vehicle traffic is minimized and restricted to the roadways; we treat
shoes, tools, gloves used in the infected area with 20% Clorox solution
for two minutes; the contract mower power-washes his equipment, does
not mow within 24 hours of a rainfall, and begins at the top of the
plot, working downhill and avoiding the cordoned-off area.
Before we discovered the Phytophthora
problem, weeds appeared to be the most trouble. This is to
be expected in any fertile site in full sun. Where the soil is
deepest and in the dip, which holds moisture longest, by August
the weeds are over my head. I tried tree mats to control
weeds inside the cages; the tree mats encouraged voles. We use
Roundup between and outside the cages, and I hand-weed inside the
cages, once in winter and twice in the growing season. Weeding
one row can take an hour.
Probing for vole tunnels with
a stick, at first I seeded the tunnels with Prozap or another more expensive
poison. I found so many tunnels, I think chestnut roots must be
the voles favorite food. They may graze on feeder roots of
seedlings for many years, severely
stunting the growth (also
causing yellowish-green leaves), or in a drought they may be
capable of consuming the whole taproot, leaving a once three-foot tall
chestnut seedling rootless and leaning against its cage. In this
way, I lost about a dozen seedlings here last August. This year I
tried Molemax sprinkled inside
the cages, in March and June, with extra doses whenever new holes
appeared or where my probe turned up new tunnels. This has been
more effective than poison (unless the poison had already knocked off
most of the vole population), and this summer most of the formerly
stunted chestnuts are thriving and many have doubled their size.
I will apply Molemax again in September. On the chance that
nutrition delivered via the leaves may assist recovery of the chestnuts
with vole-damaged root systems, I spray the seedlings having poor leaf color
with iron chelate and magnesium sulfate, on alternating weeks.
NOTE: It is inadvisable
to plant chestnuts in or near former apple orchards because voles are famous apple orchard pests.
We plant empty spaces where chestnuts have died from blight or
voles by direct-seeding with members of the same family which were
open-pollinated on a precocious F2 graft or on one of the parent
trees. There are about 30 places to be re-seeded this
winter. In drought, watering the one- and two-year old
chestnuts can take two hours.
There is so much work to be done in this plot, we work here most
Tuesdays. On workdays November
through January, we prepare planting holes, direct-seed the nuts
from the previous fall, erect protection cages and transplant
volunteers (planted by squirrels, often inside the cages). In February, I am collecting
scions and preparing the stems to be grafted beginning mid-March
through April. In late
spring and summer, I try to cruise the whole plot,
checking and tying up the new grafts, straightening out any cages which
the deer have crashed into and looking for other problems, with a roll
of flagging and a Sevin
sprayer handy. Besides defoliation, insects can wound the tiny
stems of new seedlings, providing an entry for blight before the
seedlings are big enough to express resistance; they can take out the
leader of big seedlings. So I spray the newly planted
chestnuts and those leaders still within reach on the bigger chestnuts.
Among my Lesesne grafts, 7 are
bearing nuts and 4 others have made their first male flowers. Among the seedlings planted in 2002,
38 have outgrown the 5-foot tall cages and are enclosed in
heavy-gauge, 4-foot cages with a bigger grid for easier weeding inside
cages. Eight of these are bearing nuts and an equivalent number
made first male flowers. Among
the seedlings grown from chestnuts direct-seeded in 2003, 17
have outgrown the 5-foot cages, one made early flowers, and the
tallest, at 18 feet, nearly equals the size of the champion among the
seedlings in the lower rows which had a two-year head start! The
glorious chestnut grafts of 1980 are showing no signs of decline and
producing big chestnut crops. For the time being, the infection
in their roots is under control.
The Lesesne is the largest of many research plots where American
chestnuts in our breeding program are under study, producing
information as well as chestnuts. Future newsletters will visit
the other plots.
Those of you who can travel and are unwilling to wait a year, may see
one or more of the other research plots by volunteering to help at harvest, weekdays September
22 through October 10. To
volunteer, suggest a date when you may be able to help, by e-mail to accf@hughes.net
My 2008 Report shows a total of
469 chestnuts surviving, mostly from direct-seeded nuts; 71 are new
this year. I have 99 grafts, only 18 of which are new, and 2 of
these I shall have to destroy since they have been ID'd as American x
Japanese hybrids. We shall no
longer solicit scions or identify leaves for others, because of
the time involved. To make the most of many possible intercrosses
among the 12 parent trees already identified by our tests as blight
resistant, we must concentrate on them.
We received Reports from 209 growers
in 2007, reporting on 5,175 ACCF chestnut survivors.
Where are the rest of the reports? Since 1985 we have sent out
about 160,000 American chestnuts. Where have all these chestnuts
gone? So far in 2008 we
have received 141 reports, of 4,286 survivors
At the 100th anniversary of the founding of the American Phytopathological Society, Gary's
invited talk, reviewing and evaluating recent progress in the
many branches of American chestnut research, was very well
received. Among the best pictures shown were the two biggest
Lesesne grafts and John's "Joyce " chestnut. This is the
objective opinion of an interested observer.
Several years ago, Douglas J. Buege
spent a week, working with us in many of our chestnut plots, as part of
his preparation to write about the organizations working for American
chestnut recovery. His book has a few small errors and a final
chapter with which we do not agree, but otherwise we recommend If a Tree Falls for evenhanded
reporting written in engaging style. Available from Xlibris Corp.
at 1-888-795-4274 or Orders@Xlibris.com
Thanks to Outstanding Cooperators
who helped with the 2007 harvest: Philip Latasa, Tim Logan, Vincent Roberts,
E. C. Horman, Harold & Rich Pierce, Albert Ward, Molly & Shawn
Hash.
who assisted in spring 2008 grafting: Eli Lewis and Elizabeth Cooper.
who probed for voles and made the March Molemax
application in the Lesesne: Victoria
& Eli Lewis.
who gave substantial funds that support student
technicians to keep chestnut research going in the laboratory at
Virginia Tech and pay the contractors for maintenance and improvements
in the largest research plots: The
National Wild Turkey Federation, John B. Buschmann, Carl Mayfield, and
Violet Pesinkowski.
Our directors believe in the all-American chestnut breeding
program. This is the reason for the ACCF. We are working to
restore 100% American chestnuts in our forests. However, some of
our growers have been hedging their bets and also planting hybrid
chestnuts developed elsewhere. The nuts from their plantings will
not be all-American; in this way the ACCF contribution to American
chestnut restoration could be diminished or erased.
To insure that American chestnut groves, established with our help,
accurately reflect our breeding program, we have changed the Grower
Agreement form. To order or request ACCF seedlings, chestnuts or
scions, please fill out and return the new form (link on front
page). If you have already reported via our Web site,
please indicate this on the Report form. The $20 donation to ACCF
research is unaffected by inflation, but please note that the nursery
cost of seedlings is valid only for the 2008 supply.
When we establish a chestnut planting, we try to plant on sites which
are ideal for growing American chestnuts, but a trouble-free chestnut
site has not yet been found. So if you want a successful chestnut
planting, you must commit to defend your work, in spite of all
losses. You may e-mail me for advice in dealing with trouble as
it arises (accf@hughes.net), or write in the space at the bottom of the
Report Form. Your reports are most welcome; we look forward
to them.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucille
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President,
Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president,
retired Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary,
Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord
College, WV
William Pilkington,
Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of
Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, Cookeville, TN
Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:
If you have reported on previous ACCF plantings and donated $20 in
2007, and if we have a Grower Agreement Form on file in your name, you are welcome to order American chestnut
seedlings (through November) and/or nuts (until October 15). The
2007 cost per bundle of 25 or fewer American chestnut seedlings is
$27. Growers west of the Mississippi need to add $5 extra per
bundle to cover higher mailing cost. Please make the check
payable to ACCF.
From the 2006 Virginia harvest we sent 3,880 nuts to cooperating
growers, 4,698 nuts to nurseries in West Virginia, and last winter the
nursery distributed 4,535 American chestnut seedlings to our
cooperating growers.
HARVEST
You can either harvest chestnuts out of the trees in their burs or off
the ground where they have dropped. Following last falls abundant
harvest, I thought we might switch to this second method,
eliminate the storage problem and the job of getting nuts out of burs,
and greatly decrease the numbers to be processed and sent to
growers. The squirrels have been good cooperators for
several years now, planting nuts in every one of our breeding orchards
and even starting some of them right in the row where there was a
space, so I do not mind letting them have a bigger share.
However, Dave McCurdy tells me that the nursery chestnuts will produce
a much smaller crop this fall because of poor pollination. So we
must try for the big harvest once again, to be able to send the nursery
sufficient seed to make 2008 seedlings.
Chestnut trees are individuals with different
schedules: they do not all ripen their chestnuts at the same
time, but over a period of roughly two weeks which, in Virginia,
usually begins in the last week of September. Harvest starts when
burs begin to crack open, then the burs on that tree may be ready to
pick. However, burs which contain no viable nuts may crack open
as much as two weeks early, and chestnut trees often contain small
numbers where the flowers happened not to be fertilized.
Furthermore, the first chestnuts to make flowers contain much larger
numbers of infertile nuts, because many of their flowers were receptive
before any pollen was available. So before picking a tree we make
sure that the cracked burs contain full, fat chestnuts, not sunken
blanks. We use hand clippers and a pruning pole that extends up
to 12 feet, and sometimes also a 6-foot ladder. Wearing leather
gloves we collect the burs into dog food bags, marked with the date and
the name of the mother tree and store them in a rodent-free cool place,
in the basement or in lidded garbage pails in the shade.
MANY THANKS to the
volunteers who helped pick chestnut burs in 2006: Matt
Habersack, Albert Ward, Nate Faris, Rich and Harold Pierce.
To help at harvest, e-mail Lucille at accf@hughes.net for a date
and directions. We will not begin picking the burs before the
week of September 24, leaving our yard at 9 a.m.; in
afternoons the first week of October, we should begin getting the nuts
out of the burs. We will not harvest on the weekends of
September 22 and 29 because of home football games.
We check the storage bags once a week, dumping the
contents onto a picnic table to see if more burs have cracked open
. Wearing heavier leather gloves, we remove the nuts from their
burs, then return the unopened burs to their bags for a few more days
in storage, when they can be checked again. In years of fall
drought, some burs will not crack open unassisted: rolling the
bur back and forth underfoot sometimes does the trick. Burs which
cannot be opened by humans may be scattered in the woods, where the
animals can deal with them or they might be planted, expecting a very
low percentage to make seedlings.
WEEVILS are common
throughout the range of American chestnuts, especially in areas where
Chinese chestnuts have been planted and their nuts and burs are left to
rot on the ground. The insect lays its eggs in the young chestnut
flowers and weevils (tiny worms) develop inside the chestnuts and
burs. The weevils over-winter in the ground where they emerged
from wasted nuts and spent burs to hatch out the following spring and
increase destruction of the next nut crop. To control weevils,
you make a clean harvest, burn or bury the burs and ruined nuts and
encourage your neighbors to do likewise.
PROCESSING & STORAGE
We must assume there may be weevils in the chestnuts, so we give our
chestnuts a hot water bath at 120 F for 20 minutes to kill
weevils the same day that the nuts come out of the burs. After
the hot bath, we put the chestnuts in a cold bath to stop the heat
treatment. Once they are cooled down, we pat them dry and spread
them on newspapers till they are no longer damp; then we pack them with
slightly damp peat moss in plastic bags with a few pin holes for air
exchange and send them to growers.
Those chestnuts which we keep to plant in our
research plots, we place inside plastic mayonnaise or peanut butter
jars in which small holes have been drilled, in a 50/50 mix of sand and
peat moss. We bury the jars under about 4 inches of soil with
grave markers. In Virginia the chestnuts can be safely stored
this way until early February, when many of them will begin
sprouting. We have direct-seeded chestnuts in November, December,
January and February and have had the best success with January
planting.
Growers who do not plant their chestnuts
when received, but store them in the refrigerator, should check the bag
at least once a week, to be sure the chestnuts are not drying out or
getting wet and becoming moldy, then turn the bag onto the other
side. It is too easy to forget this chore and let the seed spoil
in storage; in this way, very large numbers of seed are lost each year
because growers cannot plant when they receive them.
You may notice on
the Grower Agreement Form that we will be sending only 10 chestnuts per
grower request. Growers who need a larger number for
a group project may obtain more by volunteering at harvest, taking your
chestnuts in the burs and doing the processing yourselves.
GYPSY MOTH has invaded
Giles County. Luckily, only one of our research plots was
infested. I first noticed tiny black caterpillars toward the end
of May, picked off by hand those within reach on our chestnuts,
squashed them and sprayed with Sevin. Their numbers and size
increased at an alarming rate. It became necessary to visit the
plot at least twice a week, pick them off and stomp them, spray after
each rain. While the tall canopy oaks were completely stripped of
leaves, followed by nearly all the other hardwoods and understory trees
and bushes, our chestnuts thrived in the additional sunlight. The
battle to save them lasted about 3 weeks, and we must expect a similar
job in this plot in future years. We noticed that the gypsy moth
does not eat the leaves of the tulip poplar or cucumber magnolia.
This suggests that plantings located in clearings within solid groves
of these species (such as the Pandapas plot below our yard) may be less
likely to suffer a gypsy moth attack.
GROWERS REPORT
516 of the American chestnuts I planted are still growing. Among
them, 155 are new this year, although 20 of these are not planted
on their permanent sites but growing in a yard nursery, for transplant
following dormancy this November. These 20 are survivors from a
bunch of rejects: they appeared during processing to be in very poor
condition, too discolored --suggesting possible mold-- or too dry to
send to growers or to the nursery; they are a great example of the
benefit of getting the seed right into the ground. In
addition to the numbers above, we have at least 3 dozen chestnuts which
I did not count because they were planted by the squirrels. My
tallest seedling is Pacman E; I am unable to measure it without
help. The tallest grown from 2006 nuts are 2 feet. Six of
my seedlings are bearing nuts. Losses in our research plots were
attributed to voles, root rot or blight.
As of December 7, we have
received 194 reports, for a
total of 5,027 ACCF chestnuts reported.
These numbers will be updated, as more reports come in.
GRAFTERS REPORT
The past two years I have tried a few topgrafts (whips),
choosing stocks among sunny -side branches on blight resistant American
chestnuts which are growing in places where a pollinator is distant or
lacking. On the down side, because the grafted branches are
only 1/4 inch in diameter, the graft is vulnerable to blight.
However, these grafts are much easier to execute because you are not
lying on the ground and there is nothing to inhibit making the cuts
exactly as you want to, so I judged it worth the risk. Two
of my new grafts this year are topwork and although they are
still alive, their branches could go out this winter.
Including these, I have 19 new grafts growing in 4 sites. All but
2 (triangles) are whip grafts. Last winter we lost several
big grafts (voles eating the roots) and had the tops blight-killed in
several others. Surviving are 105 grafts, divided among 9
sites. The tallest is Thorofare Gap, grafted in our yard in
1991. Forty-one of my grafts bear nuts, and their pollen is
improving the potential of the chestnuts harvested in 5 of our breeding
orchards.
Yes, indeed, I am bragging a little, hoping to
interest some more of you in learning to graft, to improve your own
chestnut plantings, like Harold Pierce
is doing in Alabama: he has 2 grafts from 2005, one from
2006 and 8 from 2007; all bark grafts into
chinquapin, they represent a very nice variety of blight resistant
American chestnuts. Health problems prevented Carl Mayfield from grafting
this year, but he has sent in a wonderful report of 29 grafts
surviving from past years; among them are nearly all the American
chestnuts of note in our breeding program.
NATHAN PEASE UPDATE
The Nathan nutgraft on which we have been reporting the progress of
blight-resistance trials has been killed by a root rot. Another,
smaller Nathan nutgraft on a different site is in its second summer
with blight. It has 7 burs.
WATERING
The bare-root seedlings from the nursery require one gallon of water
each week of drought through their first two growing seasons. For
successful planting, it is very important to plan for this. On
planting sites where watering may be a problem, it is best to plant
smaller numbers and consider starting from nuts instead of seedlings.
Here in Virginia, we often have drought in August,
and in some of our plots, also in July and September. So we have
been establishing the Pandapas plot, by direct-seeding about 20
per year, with the goal of making a grove of 100 American
chestnuts in the National Forest 100 yards down the mountain from our
yard. We plant the nuts inside 8 inch tree shelters, sunken
a few inches in the ground and surrounded by wire cages to deter
raccoons. The small seedlings, less than two feet tall, can
survive on a quart of water per week of drought because their roots are
equal to the stems and sometimes larger (whereas nursery seedling roots
were trimmed at lifting). We remove the short tree shelters after
the first growing season.
In Turkey Run, the two research plots are both 100
yards up the mountain from the access road. These plots were
originally for grafting, but so many of the native root systems have
been weakened or killed, we decided to plant about a dozen seedlings to
make up the deficit. Direct-seeding there just provided more food
for a large vole population. Therefore, this winter we
started nuts in December by the Moote
Method, in a south-facing window , as follows: using 18
inch tree shelters with newspaper liners, we filled them with a 50/50
mix of damp peat moss & sand, let the fill settle for a day and
then press a nut one inch down, lay plastic wrap on top until the
sprouts begin to emerge (about one month), water sparingly, the same as
other house plants. In January and February we dug 2 foot
planting holes and put gallon milk jugs full of water, 3 each per hole,
inside the cages where animals could not steal the water.
During a rainy week in May, we transplanted the 6 to 8-inch tall
seedlings. These tiny seedlings also can get by on about a quart
of water per week of drought. Watering them in the cool of early
morning through the summer heat was made easy, with the supply already
on site.
We thank the National Wild Turkey
Federation for continuing generous support of our cooperative
research with the Virginia Department
of Forestry, USDA-Forest
Service and Virginia Tech,
breeding for blight resistance, establishing and maintaining forest
plots of ACCF all-American chestnuts.
SPECIAL THANKS to more OUTSTANDING
COOPERATORS:
John B.
Bushmann, Ken James, Carl Mayfield, and Violet Pesinkowski, long-term,
big supporters of the research for American chestnut restoration.
Philip Latasa
once again volunteered several days in the Lesesne last winter,
making the work go faster as we moved protection cages, removed tree
mats, weeded and treated the soil with gypsum (where we have had
root-rot in the past) and prepared new planting holes.
Remmington Bolt
also volunteered several days last winter, pruning trees at the Airport
and cutting trees at Turkey Run.
These are a few of my favorite things: working
outdoors, the company of towhees, bluebirds and indigo buntings,
watching chestnuts grow, the green of new leaves unfolding on grafts
and seedlings, a complete row of American chestnuts, a fawn
springing up from its bed in the tall weeds, a newly mown or
completely weeded research plot, hundred-foot tall tulip poplars right
next to a chestnut plot, the perfect mornings in March and April when
I graft with highest expectations, the moments each year
when the last newsletter is in the mail, the last nuts are off to
growers, the last orders, to the nursery, and lots of reports about
ACCF chestnuts. Thanks again for sending your report.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president, Superintendent, Clements State Tree
Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of
Chemistry, Concord College,
WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical
Engineer, Cookeville, TN
Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:
We shall distribute American
chestnut seedlings and/or nuts to growers who have made the annual $20
donation to ACCF research, have sent in a completed Grower Agreement
Form and have reported in 2006 on the status of their previous ACCF
planting projects.
There in no monetary profit in our chestnut
distributions. Each year we aim to break even. After
learning the nursery cost per bundle of seedlings, we make a price to
include the average cost of priority mailing east of the
Mississippi. The past few years, the Foundation has lost money on
seedling distributions, and this year the nursery costs have gone up
one dollar per bundle of 25. Therefore, the 2006 cost per bundle of 25 American
chestnut seedlings is $25. Growers west of the Mississippi need
to add $5 per bundle to cover a higher mailing cost.
Please make all checks payable to ACCF.
From the 2005 Virginia harvest we sent
2,378 nuts to cooperating growers, 7,541 nuts to the nursery in
West Virginia, and the
nursery distributed 5011 American
chestnut seedlings to our cooperating growers.
MANY
THANKS
Right up front, we wish to thank all the volunteers who helped with the
2005 chestnut harvest: Tim
Logan, Jack Torkelson, Bruce Engen, Gary Pace, Philip Latasa, Michael
Linder and Steve Prupas.
To pitch in at harvest, e-mail Lucille at
accf@hughes.net for a date and directions. We are likely to begin
picking the burs mornings on the week of September 18, leaving our yard
at 9 a.m.; we should begin getting the nuts out of the burs
in afternoons by October 2. We will not be scheduling
any harvest help for the weekends of September 16, 23 and 30 because
the home football games monopolize local accommodations and highways.
A
CHESTNUT PARABLE
Before the deer herd had become a problem, perhaps 20 years ago,
when we did not have enough cooperating growers to plant all our
seednuts, I used to plant the extras along the edges of wildlife
clearings in the National Forest or along the Forest Service
Road. Since they were planted without protection, nearly all of
those chestnuts have been eaten. Fewer than a dozen have survived
continuous munching and exist as tiny bushes. Just one
among the hundreds planted has made a great escape. It is
almost 4 inches dbh and 30 feet tall, growing in semi-shade on the
steep bank opposite our driveway. Last winter when it developed a
fist-sized canker halfway up the trunk, I expected the top to die this
summer. However, in September, the only dead foliage is on
a lower branch. Gary's opinion of this tree, Keep an eye on
it. In keeping with the designations assigned to our yard
seedlings, we named this chestnut, G-wiz.
This story illustrates several points: First,
it is unwise to assume that chestnuts can grow into trees without
benefit of protection cages. Second, the larger a chestnut can
grow before its first blight attack, the better its chances to express
blight resistance. Third, it is very important to note when a
chestnut is first attacked by blight and observe its reaction.
Fourth, a chestnut which has not been attacked by blight (blight free),
however lovely to look upon, is not yet anything special.
Finally, one observation of a blight resistant reaction is insufficient
evidence; to be included in our breeding program, the chestnut
has to prove itself by surviving five to 10 additional years without
death in its crown.
ESCAPES
As more and more enthusiasts comb the woods each year, more discoveries
of large American chestnuts (over 10 inches dbh) are reported. In
most cases these chestnuts are disease escapes, growing in the far
north, south or western edge of the natural range for the species or in
a pocket sheltered from normal wind dispersal of the blight
fungus. They may be blight free or they may have grown quite
large before their first blight attack. Like my G-wiz chestnut,
they also bear watching. Although they are likely to die from
blight within a few years, there is always a chance that some may
prove to have durable blight resistance.
RAISING
AMERICAN CHESTNUTS
The ACCF chestnuts we distribute to you, our cooperating growers, have
much greater chances to express blight resistance. We estimate at
least 10%. The best possible result will be obtained by growers
who plant in well-drained, sandy loam soil, in full sun, on cove slopes
facing North to East at altitudes below 2,500 feet, protecting against
injury to the trunk and leader of each seedling with 5-foot-tall wire
caging, and regularly checking seedlings to deal with other problems as
they arise.
The most important
site requirement is that it be well-drained, to avoid the
possibility of root rot. Growers who have discovered root rot
among their plantings should try to limit its spread by fencing off and
marking the area with bright flagging, avoiding work there when the
ground is wet, planting grasses but no seedlings downhill from the
infected area and treating tools, gloves and footwear with a 20% Clorox
solution immediately after use there (for more information, scroll down
and see Phytophthora, in the 2003
Newsletter).
Tree mats
(Forestry Suppliers, Inc.) are helpful in controlling weeds inside the cages,
but they also offer cover for voles
that can nip off the chestnut roots. Weeds and grasses are
serious competition to young seedlings and will greatly retard their
growth, leaving the seedlings at high risk for a longer
period. In very fertile plots we are unable to
control the weeds without tree mats. We lift the mats two or
three times a year, pull weeds and put poison (Prozap) into vole runs
and tunnels.
Japanese beetles
can be picked off by hand from lower branches and hit with Sevin on
leaves that are out of reach. Where a plot is isolated, you can spread
Milky Spore over the grassy area to wipe out the Japanese beetle
problem.
Ambrosia beetles
can be eliminated if the infestation is caught early in spring and
sprayed with permethrin through that growing season and again in March
of the next year.
When a small chestnut seedling (under an inch in
diameter) is girdled by blight,
the stem can be cut near ground level and the wound covered with
soil. If its root system is healthy, a new shoot will take over,
grow rapidly and give the chestnut a second chance.
Pruning is
not usually advised, but sometimes you need to cut out blighted
branches. This should be done in the fall when the blight fungus
is least active. Cover the wound with pruning seal. When a
chestnut has more than one stem, choose the strongest and cut the
others below ground level, cover these cuts with soil.
The first swollen blight canker often occurs
at the base of a chestnut. We advise making mud packs to cover basal cankers through winter
dormancy and keep them in place, watering occasionally, until the
seedling is 1.5 inches in diameter.
When the leaves
of a seedling are not dark green,
there may be a nutrient deficiency. This can occur occasionally
in a plot where other seedlings are making healthy growth.
We spray yellowish leaves with magnesium sulfate and repeat the
following week if their color seems to be improving. Otherwise,
spray chelated iron and observe whether it makes a difference.
This is quicker and cheaper than individual soil or leaf tests for each
plant.
About midway through the growing season, often the leaves on the tips of branches in
many chestnuts become rumply and
curled up. This is an unidentified disease, possibly a
virus. It is not lethal, but it sharply curtails growth for the
rest of that season. This year we noticed that in many cases the
curly leaves are lighter in color than the other leaves on the
chestnut. We sprayed magnesium sulfate and iron chelate on the
curly tips, on the possibility that the chestnuts are deprived of
nutrients. In many cases, the curly leaves turned a darker green,
and in several cases the seedling resumed production of normal
leaves.
GROWERS REPORT
This year I have 406 American chestnut seedlings growing, of which 105
are from chestnuts planted last winter. My tallest is Pacman E,
which has had swollen blight cankers since 1999. Six of my seedlings
are bearing nuts. My losses are nearly all attributed to voles or
blight.
As of December 15, we have
received 152 reports, for a
total of 10,092 ACCF chestnuts
reported. The numbers above will be updated, as more
reports of chestnuts from ACCF distributions come in.
GRAFTERS
REPORT
In the past I have reported some instances of high percentage takes
with bark and cleft grafting methods. Unfortunately, the numbers have
not held up. Many bark and cleft grafts make spectacular growth
on incomplete unions, but for many years they remain highly vulnerable
to total wipeout from high winds. Comparing my notes, I was
unable to find anything to account for this uneven reliability.
So I have given up on them; beginning this year I am making only whip
and triangle grafts. John Elkins still has good success with bark
grafts.
I have 90 grafts growing well, of which only 9 are
new this year. My tallest is Thorofare Gap, at 50 feet; it was
grafted in 1991 and has had swollen blight cankers since 1998.
Thirty-one of my grafts are bearing nuts. Losses are attributed to
incomplete unions and blight.
A few of our best grafters have reported
early: Carl Mayfield has 42 ACCF grafts, of which 7 are new this
year. Ed Greenwell has 49 grafts, of which the tallest is 25
feet. Carl & Ed make mostly nut grafts. Harold Pierce
has 6 grafts, of which 3 are new this year; Harold grafts into
chinquapin stocks.
NATHAN
PEASE UPDATE
The end of this growing season finds Nathan Pease 25 feet tall, with no
new blight cankers and its one trunk canker surrounded by swollen
tissue which has expanded inward to cover a little of the exposed
wood. We are watching it: two years down and 8 to go.
We thank the National Wild Turkey
Federation for continuing generous support of our cooperative
research with the Virginia Department
of Forestry, USDA-Forest Service and Virginia Tech, establishing and
maintaining forest plots of ACCF all-American chestnuts.
The Pandapas
plot now has 79 American chestnuts growing. They are mostly first
generation crosses among chestnuts that were not represented in our
original intercrosses: Thompson, NC Champ, Ragged Mt, and
JEB. We also planted some volunteers into which we plan to graft
the parent trees (above). From 2006, we have one JEB graft
started. The tallest chestnut in this plot is a 5-foot
(Thompson x NC Champ) from a nut planted in 2003.
At Turkey Run
18 grafts survive, and two of these are new in 2006; all are in
the (Ruth x Miles) family, F2s. The two grafts killed in
2005 by ambrosia beetle have sprouted back; time will tell whether
these sprouts come from the grafts or the blight-susceptible
stocks. One graft made male flowers only.
Three seedlings planted in 2002 survive; the tallest
is 5 feet. We direct-seeded twelve more chestnuts harvested from a
(Ruth x Miles) F2, by planting them inside 2-feet tall, fine-mesh
hardware cylinders that were sunken a foot into the soil which
contained glass shards; most germinated, but all were killed by
voles. To plant these places we shall try one more time, in
winter of 2007, using seedlings grown from an open-pollinated
F2. Most of the work in this plot is management, cutting the
other trees, so that the chestnuts are the tallest trees and wind
dispersal of pollen (perhaps next year) may be most efficient.
In the Lesesne
State Forest, Nelson County, we have 234 seedlings mostly
growing from various F1 and F2 intercrosses along with a smaller number
of open-pollinated nuts from the parent trees of these crosses.
Sixty-four of these are from nuts planted last winter; some are
survivors from a test planting (to determine whether Phytophthora
was still a problem) in 20 holes which were treated with SubdueMax
drench in 2004 and 2005 after the previous seedlings died of root
rot. This year, all seedlings and grafts in the lower half of the
3.4 acre plot received a dressing of gypsum, which is said to
disrupt Phytophthora reproduction, and the grafts and seedlings near or
downhill from the 1980 Thompson and Ragged Mt grafts (which have
survived with blight control for 25 years and are now seriously
threatened by Phytophthora root rot) were surrounded with a thick
mulch of grass clippings, to inhibit spread of this root
disease. Fungicide treatments are being continued only within the
canopy of the two large grafts, above.
OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS:
John B.
Bushmann, Ken James, Karl Mayfield, and Violet Pesinkowski continue
extensive support for and participation in American chestnut
restoration research.
Philip Latasa
was most helpful during the 2005 chestnut harvest and also
volunteered many hours working in the Lesesne, lopping off ailanthus,
digging and preparing the planting holes, making protection cages and
pruning trees that shaded the planting area.
Jenny & Lizzy
Cooper again spent their spring vacation grafting American
chestnuts.
FOR INTERNET RESOURCES:
Scroll down to the end of the 2005 or 2004 newsletter.
We are a very small, nonprofit
foundation, capable of doing a very big job for American chestnut
restoration because our scientists and officers are all dedicated
volunteers and the Foundation neither owns nor rents property.
Thus, we can make progress with a small budget, because funds are
needed only to support the research, to pay for student assistance in
the laboratory and field, for plot maintenance and supplies, and for
correspondence and mailing seednuts to you, our cooperating
growers. The thousands of ACCF American chestnuts growing in
research plots on public lands and on your lands, and you, our
cooperating growers, are the most important assets of our
Foundation. Our rewards are in knowledge reaped from scientific
research and field experience and shared with the public. We
thank you for joining in and supporting our work and look forward to
counting many more of your reports among this year's rewards.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors:
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president, Superintendent, Clements State Tree
Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of
Chemistry, Concord College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical
Engineer, Cookeville, TN
American
Chestnut Cooperator's Foundation
The 2005 Seedling Cost is
$40 per 50 or fewer year-old, bare-root American chestnut
seedlings mailed to growers east of the Mississippi. For western
growers, the cost is $50 per 50 seedlings, to cover the additional
mailing cost. Seedling orders need to be submitted on a Cooperating
Grower Agreement form (inside leaf), unless we already have one here on
file for you. Make the check out to ACCF, and please remember to
include your annual donation if you have not already sent it in. Early
ordering is strongly advised; we ran out of seedlings in the beginning
of November in 2004.
Everyone who has a Grower Agreement on file with us and has sent in a
donation this year may request up to 15 American chestnut seeds.
But you will need to get your request in early, also: all chestnut
seeds which have not been requested by October 15, will be shipped to
the nursery to make next year's seedlings. We have discontinued the
practice of sending out larger seed lots to individuals or groups. The
work of processing, extracting them from their burs and then the hot
water treatment, 120 F for 20 minutes, is very time-consuming, and we
do not have the capacity to store large numbers of chestnut seed.
From the 2004 Virginia harvest we sent 4,716 nuts to
cooperating growers and the nursery in West Virginia, and the nursery
distributed 5544 American chestnut seedlings to our cooperating
growers.
The only way to get more than 15 American chestnuts is to help out at
harvest and take up to 100 nuts home with you, in their burs, and
process them yourself. We need volunteer help at chestnut harvest, usually beginning in the
third week of September, to cut out the burs on the trees ready to be
harvested and put burs into dog food bags marked by mother tree. The
seed orchards are in Blacksburg and Giles County. I usually leave home
around 9 and work till noon or until the work for that day is done.
Some days there may be only one tree to harvest, other days, many. The
burs are cut with an extension pole pruner usually 12 feet long; you
hold it overhead, stretching to reach the burs and bracing against the
rope pull that works the blade. It is hard work, for strong, younger
persons. To pitch in at harvest, e-mail Lucille at accf@direcway.com
for a date and directions.
We store the burs in the basement about a week, until many are cracking
open, then extract nuts from the burs, wearing heavy leather gloves,
working outside on a picnic table, usually afternoons, beginning in the
end of September. This is a repetitive job that wears out your hands
and grip. We would be grateful for help with this, also.
Voles are determined miners of American
chestnuts, eating the nuts before they sprout and eating the roots when
they grow below the protection of the tree shelter. Direct-seeding
chestnuts is wasted effort in the face of large vole populations and
nursery plantings may be possible only with special precautions. The
bed should be prepared by digging a trench one foot deep and lining the
bottom and sides with quarter-inch grid hardware cloth before replacing
the soil and planting. The hardware cloth should extend several inches
above ground where it is joined by a ch chicken-wire fence. Poison
baits to be placed in PVC pipes or tire halves can be obtained at feed
stores, but they require daily monitoring to remove the dead voles.
The Asian ambrosia beetle is a tiny pest
which has been found throughout the southeast, from Texas to coastal
Maryland. To reproduce, the female bores pinholes into the sapwood of
young, thin-barked hardwoods. The beetle damage is most serious when it
begins in early March and April, and it continues at lower levels until
fall. While many other tree species may survive, an attack by ambrosia
beetles can be a death sentence for American chestnut because the
blight fungus may enter through the many tiny holes.
Defend against this pest by examining the lower trunk and branches of
chestnuts smaller than 3 inches in diameter at breast height: look for
the telltale pinholes; sometimes a tiny column of sawdust is protruding
from the hole. Check once a week at least, beginning in March and
throughout the season. If any pinholes are found, treat the entire bark
surface weekly with a spray containing permethrin. Prune out heavily
infested stems and burn them. Stems with strong root systems can sprout
back if you cut the stem near ground level and cover the wound with
soil.
Here in the Virginia mountains, this is the first year we have found
ambrosia beetle damage. Because so much is at stake in the four
research plots involved, we have been spraying all the chestnut stems 3
inches in diameter and smaller in these plots. The beetles had been at
work for two months before we discovered them, so we may lose at least
six large grafts. We hope, through vigilance and prompt treatment, that
you may be able to avoid similar losses.
This Grower's Report covers twelve
separate American chestnut research plots: eleven are in three Virginia
counties and one is in West Virginia. Half are in yard or orchard
settings and half are in the forest. I have been planting American
chestnuts since 1985. This year I counted 331 survivors, of which 131
are F2 seedlings (second generation
all-Americans). My tallest is Pacman, at about 35 feet, and three of my
seedlings are bearing nuts. Seedling losses this year I attribute, in
order of importance, to poor germination, hungry voles, blight, Phytophthora,
and other unidentified varmints.
As of MAY 8, we have received 141 reports
from growers, for a total of 6639
ACCF chestnuts reported.
This Grafter's Report covers eight
grafting plots in Virginia, all of which contain seedling plantings,
also. Four plots are in the National Forest. For 2005, I have
only 15 new grafts surviving. From all the years since 1990, I have 111
surviving grafts of which 26 are bearing nuts. Thirty-eight are F2 grafts, and three of these are bearing. As always,
graft failure is the biggest problem, followed by premature blight
infection, undermining of the root systems by a root rot or voles, and
now also, the ambrosia beetle.
We look forward to reading your grafting reports, and as they
are received, they will be posted in the on-line newsletter here:
Carl Mayfield reports 41 surviving ACCF grafts. Harold Pierce beginning this year
grafting into chinquapin has 4
grafts.
Nathan Pease is the occasional subject of
inquiry. Ed Greenwell named his Pease seedling, Nathan when it showed
precocious blight resistance. You may remember that we began the
blight-resistance trial on a Nathan nutgraft in May 2004, by
inoculating the lowest branch in two places with a killing strain of
the blight fungus. This May the results were disappointing: the level
of blight resistance recorded in the one-year test is very low and
would be insufficient for inclusion in our breeding program. However,
there is the second, long-term test: this spring we inoculated a blight
canker on Nathan's trunk with hypovirulent strains of the blight
fungus. A few of our American chestnuts, which did not test well at
first, have since shown impressive long-term resistance (10 years +).
Breeding: We have just over a hundred
control bags up in six different mother trees. All of this year's
intercrosses are first generation all-Americans, to increase the
numbers that may be available for future testing in several new lines
which we started in previous years. Although the mother trees have
demonstrated very impressive long-term blight resistance, we have
learned from past resistance trials that blight resistance of the
parent trees does not regularly combine. Equal or better blight
resistance may be expected to show up in about 10% of the progeny. This
is one reason why breeding for blight resistance takes so much time.
Another reason is premature infection with the blight fungus. The
one-year resistance test requires trunks blight free and at least 1.5
inches in diameter at breast height. Before they reach this size, many
American chestnuts have blight on the main stem. This is the case with
our large, bearing F2 grafts. We inoculated their
cankers with hypovirulence and will have to watch them over 10 years,
instead of being able to make selections for the next generation
following a one-year test. Thus, we did not put bags on the F2 flowers.
We thank the National Wild Turkey Federation for
continuing support of our cooperative research with the Virginia
Department of Forestry, USDA-Forest Service and Virginia
Tech, establishing and maintaining forest plots of ACCF
all-American chestnuts.
The Pandapas plot has 96 prepared planting holes, with staked
5-foot weldwire cages and tree mats for weed control. From the 2003
planting, 7 (Th x J) and 7 volunteers (for grafting) have survived.
Last winter, we direct-seeded nuts to fill all the empty spaces for a
total of 96 and planted four to six daffodils around each cage in an
attempt to create an area unappetizing to voles. We also made a small
nursery planting with 30 extra from this seed lot in a cold frame in
our yard, for a backup system, in case of poor germination or theft.
Only 31 of the direct-seeded chestnuts germinated and all 30 in the
backup nursery were stolen by voles. The tallest new seedling is 21
inches. We are contemplating strategies for planting the 51 empty
spaces this winter.
At Turkey Run 15 grafts survive. Two each were killed this
past spring by blight and ambrosia beetle. The few new grafts made
failed, so we concentrated efforts to cut back the competing tree
species and bring more sunlight on the grafts and other chestnuts which
may be grafted in a year or two, when they are growing more vigorously.
We direct-seeded seven (Ruth x Miles) to fill the empty places in the
small planting area where three chestnuts from previous plantings
survive. Here we had excellent germination, but one by one, at six to
eight inches tall, the five planted in the bottom row died, their roots
trimmed off by voles.
In the Lesesne State Forest, Nelson County, we planted in holes
where nuts or seedlings had previously failed 59 open-pollinated nuts
and 12 volunteer seedlings. None of the nuts germinated in the two
sections in which we have a Phytophthora problem, while seven
of the small volunteer seedlings survive there, but with insignificant
incremental growth. We continue to treat with SubdueMax fungicide
drench, spring and fall, most of the lower half of this 3.5 acre plot
and also tried a chicken manure treatment in the spring.
In the 2003 planting section, most of the open pollinated nuts
germinated and 9 have survived. Nearly all of the controlled pollinated
nuts germinated, also: we have 27 (NCC x J), 26 (VT2 x G4) and 12
Pacman. Total survivors in this planting, including 6 F1
back-crosses to the Floyd parent, are 80. Many of the new seedlings
were at or over 20 inches tall when checked on August 9, and the
tallest 2-year-old is 4.5 feet.
In the 2002 planting, 88 of the original F2
seedlings survive, along with 5 F2 grafts and 5
volunteers for future grafting. The tallest seedling is 12 feet. Most
of the losses in this planting have been to Phytophthora.
The western third of the Lesesne plot contains the big 1980 grafts and
many root systems from the original Dietz planting in 1969, some of
which may receive grafts in the future. We have nine new grafts in this
area, along with 12 others made since 2000. Three of the older grafts
and one from this spring have died apparently from root rot, along with
two small seedlings. Ten seedlings survive, although the tallest has
yellowing leaves which might be an early sign of stress from root rot.
In addition to the fungicide drench, we spray yellowing leaves with
magnesium sulfate and amend the soil inside the cage with compost, in
case the problem may be nutritional.
We have gone into detail, to give the newcomers among an idea of some
growing problems in forest settings, as well as any planting place
without very good drainage.
Outstanding Cooperators:
John B. Bushmann, Ken James, Karl Mayfield, and Violet Pesinkowski are
long-term, outstanding supporters of and contributors to American
chestnut research.
Charlie Elgin and another gentleman, whose name I have
misplaced, helped with the 2004 chestnut harvest. We hope to recognize
the unidentified gentleman here next year.
Jenny & Lizzy Cooper cut trees in the Turkey Run plot and
grafted, spending their spring vacation helping the American chestnut
cause.
INTERNET RESOURCES: Ed's Web page showing Nathan's progress
http://www.accf-online.org/nathanblight.htm
The Tennessee ACCF site, also by Ed: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/1436/
ACCF Links page, by Ed, featuring a March 2003, photo of Jenny
Cooper grafting in Craigs Creek research plot:
http://www.accf-online.org/links.html
We are working for American chestnut restoration with the hope of
making a small contribution which might be multiplied many times
throughout the natural range and through the generations to improve our
forests. This is often hard work and also demands a stubborn, long-term
commitment, keen observation skills and a thoughtful, rapid response in
problem-solving. It teaches the habit of keeping notes and is a great
introduction to scientific study. With our work product constantly
exposed to the forces of nature, we learn to develop patience in
adversity and humility in success. Our spirits are uplifted by each
small advance, and we give thanks. These are the values which made our
country great. You cannot go wrong by involving the whole family,
children and grandchildren in American chestnut restoration.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president, Superintendent, Clements State Tree
Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of
Chemistry, Concord College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical
Engineer, Cookeville, TN
American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation
2004 Newsletter
Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:
STRONG HELP WANTED AT HARVEST
to wield 12 and 20 foot extension-pole pruners and cut the burs out of
seednut mother trees. We will need help on September 18, 20-24, 27-30
and October 1. Meet at Forest Service Rd708, Newport, VA at 9
a.m; e-mail accf@direcway.com
for directions.
ACCF BREEDING
In our quest for all-American chestnuts with
high blight resistance, we start from original blight survivors with
low levels of blight resistance. By selecting the best
blight-resistant individuals through successive generations of
breeding, we aim to concentrate their blight resistance, to obtain the
high level which is required for long-term survival within the American
chestnut's natural range. This is a classic breeding
method. It has been widely successful, creating many
disease-resistant crops.
With trees, it just takes longer. A
generation for American chestnuts is 8 to 10 years from
controlled pollination to blight-resistance testing. We have
three breeding lines in their second generation; of these only (Ruth x
Miles) may begin testing within a year or two. Other 2004
controlled all-American intercrosses include (G4 x Fl), (BigM x G4),
(Fl x JEB), (Th x JEB), (RgMt x JEB), (NCC x JEB), (MtL x JEB),
(MtL x Am), (Lo x Am) and (Lo x JEB).
But what about the seedlings and seednuts from
open pollination which you, our cooperating growers, are raising?
Thousands of these, planted within the natural range, are being
field-tested by the ever-present blight. Most may have some genes
in common with our controlled intercrosses, as well as genes from
dozens of other blight-resistant American chestnuts. The best
blight-resistant individuals to turn up among them are to be our source
of diversity for the blight resistant American chestnut
population. Gary and John plan to visit your plantations as they
mature to evaluate these American chestnuts. We rely upon your
reports to help identify the best American chestnuts from our
distributions. Pollen and scions from the very best among them
will add the finishing touch to each ACCF breeding line.
COOPERATOR'S AGREEMENT
We request all cooperating growers to sign,
date and fill out the enclosed Cooperating Grower's Agreement form, in
pledge of your commitment to our breeding program. An additional
document (posted on our Web site) will be required for orders of 100 or
more seedlings or requests for larger than the usual (15) seednut
allotment.
LOWER SEEDLING COST
The 2004 nursery cost for seedlings is $35 per
50 or fewer year-old, bare-root American chestnut seedlings. This
includes Priority mailing, where necessary, to most addresses East of
the Mississippi. Growers West of the Mississippi need to add $10
per 50 American chestnuts to cover a higher shipping cost. Orders
must be received on a Cooperating Grower's Agreement form. We
strongly advise those who cannot plant seedlings in winter to request
seednuts instead.
The nursery distribution schedule depends upon
the weather. American chestnuts must be fully dormant before
lifting. Also, the machinery cannot operate on very wet
terrain. Thus, the date when seedlings may be mailed is unknown
until the last minute, and we are unable to promise delivery for a
specific date. In general, the chestnuts are lifted in the second
half of November, processed and packed on a Saturday for mailing the
following Monday. All
growers should start now to prepare the holes and erect protection
cages. The ability to plant seedlings soon after they
arrive correlates strongly with high transplant success.
PROTECTION CAGES are necessary
to save your young American chestnuts from deer and rabbit
depredations. We prefer to make our cages from 2 x 4 inch grid,
4- and 5-foot tall weldwire (sometimes called dogwire). You can
cut 7 cages from a 50 foot roll. When constructing cages, it is
best to bend only 3 wires, with the middle wire bent in the opposite
direction to the wires at the top and bottom. This way, cages can
be easily moved, as needed. We use five-foot cages to protect
the leader of shorter seedlings and grafts; we change to 4-foot
cages once the leader is 7 feet tall. The strongest stakes for
cages are 4-foot rebar, but half-inch conduit is lighter-weight for
carrying into plots and also cheaper. Running deer may crash into
cages, destroying them, if they are not decorated with bright
flagging.
GROWERS' REPORTS
From nuts and seedlings I have planted over
the past 20 years, I count 258 surviving American chestnuts. Only
6 of these are big enough to take care of themselves. The rest
require regular attention through the growing season to keep them in
full sun and free from the competition of other plants, to minimize
insect damage, and nip all other problems at the bud. My
experience with setbacks, natural and unnatural disasters is the source
for most of our recommendations to growers. Thus, I read your
reports with sympathy, I appreciate your efforts (often in spite of the
evidence), and I always hope to be able to help.
As of 12/12/05, we have received 168 reports of
5,455 surviving ACCF chestnuts. If yours is not among these,
please send your report via our Web site or on the reverse side of your
Cooperating Grower's Agreement form. Your numbers will be added the
tally above. Last winter,
we sent out 2,737 seednuts and 8,595 seedlings to cooperating growers.
GRAFTING REPORT
I have 36 new grafts, representing 30% success
overall for 2004, but as usual, the results varied greatly among the
different plots. Many losses at the Airport and Scion Bank were
caused by tiny ants colonizing the new grafts inside their shelters and
eating the buds. This might be avoided in the future by
sprinkling Diazinon on the soil surrounding each graft. Most
other losses I attribute to bad luck in timing the graft: on
certain dates nearly everything grew, while during one whole week
everything failed. Thus, some plots had success higher than 60%,
while others obtained less than 20%. I have altogether 117
surviving grafts and Carl Mayfield has 92. We look forward to
your grafting reports and observations.
BLIGHT RESISTANCE TESTING
begins in May, when blight-free American chestnuts that are 1.5 inches
in diameter at breast height can be inoculated with a known killing
strain of the blight fungus. Then, the following May we measure
the size and depth of the blight canker and compare it against the
standard developed by Gary Griffin. About a dozen (Miles x
Ruth) F2 grafts were large enough this year; but unfortunately,
well before May, none were blight-free. Keen to begin testing
something, I chose Ed Greenwell's Nathan Pease nutgraft, although it
was only one inch dbh. We are looking forward to May 2005 results.
NWTF GRANT
Many thanks to the National Wild Turkey Federation for
very generous support of our project, in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Forestry, USDA-Forest Service and Virginia Tech, to establish and test
in forest plots ACCF all-American chestnuts.
Last winter, the Blacksburg Ranger District
cleared the area in the Jefferson
National Forest which they had cut for the Pandapas plot to test
a first generation intercross (Th x J). We have marked 10 rows
with 10 foot spacing down the mountainside in this east-facing
cove. We prepare each hole thus: cut and pull roots, dig 18
inch hole, mix a tablespoon of Diazinon in the fill and replace it,
push an 8 to 10 inch cylinder 2 to 3 inches down in the center of the
planting place, install a tree mat (Forestry Suppliers, Inc.) and a
staked, 5 -foot tall protection cage, hung with pink flagging to keep
deer from crashing into cages. Our yield from 2003 controlled
pollinations was so disappointing, we only had 12 nuts to plant
(in the cylinders) here last winter. Seven have survived,
and we planted an additional row of volunteer seedlings, of which 8
survive. These volunteers are from American chestnuts that are
not blight resistant; we will use them for grafting stock to include
the parent trees in the same plot with their progeny, for test
purposes. This past June and July, hoping for enough seed
to fill out plantings this winter, we pollinated each flower 3 times at
5 day intervals, instead of the usual two times.
In the Lesesne
State Forest, Nelson County, in the area newly cleared by the
VDF, we planted two and a half long rows by direct-seeding as above,
with several different controlled intercrosses, F2 and F1.
This new planting has 28(VT2 x G4), 21(NCC x J), 2(F x G4), 5(Ruth x F)
and 2 Pacman. Also surviving in the other parts of this plot from
past years' planting are 102(Miles x Ruth) and 12 additional F1
intercrosses. From past years' grafts 16 survive, along
with 16 new grafts, mostly F2 but also some parent trees. In May,
we inoculated blight cankers on seven of the F2 grafts with
hypovirulence. In June, Gary applied Subdue fungicide
drench in two areas where seedlings or grafts have died from a root
rot. We cannot increase the Lesesne plantings until the
Phytophthora or other root-rot pathogen is under control.
At Turkey Run
we have 24 F2 grafts and 3 F2 seedlings. We have inoculated the
first blight cankers on six of these grafts. Altogether, we now
have 18 (Miles x Ruth) F2 grafts under integrated management:
blight-resistant all-Americans on ideal sites managed for
American chestnut, with their first blight cankers inoculated with
select hypovirulent strains of the blight fungus. Our largest F2
graft (20 ft) is at the Airport;
it made 2 female flowers which we pollinated with JEB.
2004 OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS
Wayne Bowman of the Virginia
Department of Forestry and Ed Leonard,
Silviculturist of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest,
for invaluable cooperation and assistance in research plots.
Jenny, Lizzy & Lise Cooper,
and Vicky Lewis for harvesting
most of our 2003 seednuts. They held the pruning poles last fall.
John Buschmann, for
contributions too numerous to cite toward ACCF progress in the research
at the Lesesne State Forest, and Frieda
for pitching in with the dirty work.
Ken James, no relation to
Jesse, for his work at Chestnut Hill. In July, Gary and I
visited Ken to look over his American chestnut restoration
project. He has 38 surviving grafts and 271 seedlings growing on
ideal, rich chestnut land in the severe upstate NY climate. This
is a great test site. To create his chestnut plots, he cut the
big timber himself. In addition to ACCF stock, his collection
includes some good-looking native NY chestnuts. Considering
the quality and scope of Ken's work at Chestnut Hill, we are amazed.
Carl Mayfield, for regular
generous support of ACCF research, outstanding grafting and an
extensive, well-documented American chestnut restoration project.
Violet Pesinkowski, for
regular, very generous support of ACCF research.
Douglas Buege, for volunteer
labor in ACCF research plots, carrying bales of weldwire, preparing
terrain, cutting trees and weeds.
By taking on the job of restoring American
chestnuts in the forests, we accept a huge environmental
challenge. This year, we are pleased to welcome many new
cooperating growers from the National Wild Turkey
Federation. We need as many hands as possible to make the
long-term commitment and share the hard work. Cutting trees,
weeding, digging planting holes, constructing cages, driving stakes,
planting or grafting, you may be tired, dirty and sweating, but
nevertheless very happy to look upon your work and give thanks that you
are still able to do this work. The possibility of an American
chestnut grove is worth it.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president, Superintendent, Clements State Tree
Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of
Chemistry, Concord College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical
Engineer, Cookeville, TN
Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:
NEW SEEDLING PRICE
We are late figuring the seedling cost this
year
because we lost money on last year's distribution. Also, we have
learned that
most seedlings sent outside West Virginia are in the mails for as long
as 2
weeks, even those going across the river to Ohio. Seedlings
now cost
$40 per bundle of 50; for bundles of 25 or fewer, the cost is
$23.
We highly recommend that all growers who do
not plan to
pick up their seedlings (see below, Open House) and do not live in West
Virginia
consider requesting Priority mailing. Priority costs an
additional $10
per bundle. When you write your check payable to
ACCF,
please remember to add your contribution for 2003 ($20) to the research
that
supports these distributions.
The nursery has designated only 4,500
seedlings for
ACCF growers this year, so it is best to send your orders in early.
OPEN HOUSE
1. The West Virginia Forest Tree Nursery
where
they harvest the nuts and then grow the American chestnut
seedlings which
we have been distributing since 1989, will hold an open house for ACCF
growers
on Saturday, December 6, from 10 to 12 a.m.
The nursery is located about 10 miles north of
Point
Pleasant, WV, in Lakin, near the Ohio River, on Route 62.
Please note in your order, if you plan to pick
up your
seedlings at that time. We can send you a list of motels within a
10 mile
radius of the nursery upon request.
Come and meet Dave McCurdy, John Elkins, and
(weather
permitting) Ed Greenwell, ask questions and discuss your growing
problems and
solutions.
2. The Airport Research Plot near Virginia Tech in
Blacksburg is
the place where we hold spring grafting lessons; there we are making
another
demonstration of integrated management for chestnut blight
control. We
also have about 2 dozen tiny volunteer chestnut seedlings which may be
dug up
and taken home. Lucille can meet you at 10 a.m. on November 8.
Please request directions to avoid being late to this open house.
Security
requires locking the gate after entering.
PHYTOPHTHORA
The first symptom of a Phytophthora
infection is
premature yellowing leaves, followed by browning leaves and then death
of the
stem. When the seedling is dug up, a brownish-black decay is
evident on
the fine roots and the structural roots. Unlike chestnut blight,
Phytophthora offers no second chance because it kills the roots as well
as the
top.
The ultimate defense is to plant in sandy,
well-drained
soils, avoid low-lying and flat land (unless the soil is sandy), and
also, avoid
old fields in the Piedmont. In cases where the soils are
ordinarily
well-drained but are heavy in texture, unusually wet conditions can
slow the
drainage to create a Phytophthora problem.
If the disease is diagnosed in its early
stages,
it can be controlled with a fungicide drench (Ridomil or Subdue)
applied
following the manufacturer's directions. This is an expensive and
labor-intensive solution which we recommend only where the
planting site
is ordinarily well-drained but held water longer than usual because of
extremely
heavy and frequent rains.
If you have a Phytophthora problem:
put the dead
seedlings directly into garbage bags and send them to the landfill;
seed the
planting holes with grass to contain spread of the pathogen, and do not
replant
American chestnuts there, or nearby downhill from the
Phytophthora-infested area.
VOLES
They make tunnels in field and forest, feeding
on
insect grubs, worms and roots, and like many other creatures they fancy
American
chestnuts.
With no voles in the neighborhood, you can
protect
direct-seeded chestnuts with a tree shelter about 10 inches tall,
driven two
inches into the soil and staked in place. The nut is planted no
more than
an inch down and covered with peat moss, and the shelter is surrounded
by a 5
foot tall weldwire cage to protect against raccoon, rabbit and deer.
Voles simply undermine this defense and eat
the
chestnut root as it emerges below the shelter barrier. The
control
recommended for commercial orchards presumes an ability to visit the
plot daily;
if you may be able to do this, then contact your County Agent for
help.
Other possible courses of action include planting daffodil bulbs (which
are
poison) in a wide circle around each chestnut and/or mixing ground
glass around
and below each chestnut. More vole control suggestions are most welcome.
NWTF GRANT
This year a National Wild Turkey Federation
grant of
$5,000 continues support for planting second generation all-Americans (F2s)
and making grafts of them to test their blight resistance and to
establish two
seed orchards on public lands.
For part of this project, we cooperate with the Virginia
Department of Forestry in the Lesesne State Forest. In
February,
they cleared an additional acre or so to make more space for planting
&
grafting. This past November and March, in last year's planting
rows, we
filled the empty places by direct-seeding. This September, I counted
112 F2
seedlings there, (Miles x Ruth) and (Ruth x Miles). Although
three of the
seedlings are 6 foot tall and three are 5 foot tall, the majority grew
very
little this year because of intense weed competition (over 8 feet tall)
and a
non-lethal virus infection on the leaves.
The grafts of these F2s in several sites
number
54, but they represent only 40 individuals, and of these it appears
that only 5
may be large enough to begin blight resistance testing in May 2004,
while the
others will need at least one more growing season to reach the required
diameter
of 1.5 inches at breast height.
The test for blight resistance includes inoculation
with a
killing strain of the blight fungus, after which the canker growth is
measured
over a 2-year period.
Our new seed orchards are under development in
cooperation
with the USDA-FS, Blacksburg Ranger District. The Craigs
Creek
project now has 22 grafts and 5 seedlings, all from the same controlled
pollination (above). While 7 of them are over 12 ft tall, we did not
plan to use
these grafts for resistance testing, but instead, to put them under
integrated
management as soon as they are naturally infected by blight.
The final step in integrated management involves
regularly
checking for blight and inoculating the first blight cankers (on
resistant
individuals) with hypovirulent strains of the blight fungus selected
from the
research cultures at Virginia Tech. In May, we inoculated with
hypovirulent strains the first three F2 grafts to be
infected with
blight, in 2 other test plots.
In our Poverty Creek project, the Forest Service has
cut less
than an acre in a mesic, east-facing cove site where we shall begin
direct-seeding this November to establish a new breeding line with
different
parent trees.
LARGE SURVIVORS
Recently there has been a great deal of public interest in
searching for additional American chestnuts which appear to have
survived the
blight and therefore might be useful to programs breeding for blight
resistance.
While this is a worthy project, our limited
personnel and
resources are fully employed and often working overtime. We
cannot take
time off to check out a discovery unless the American chestnut is
growing in
heavy blight territory, not on the periphery of the natural range, in a
forest
setting, at an altitude over 3,000 feet, and it is over 10 inches in
diameter at
breast height with visible blight, but no serious crown damage.
No doubt there are numerous survivors which miss the
above
description by only one or a few criteria and are therefore well worth
the
effort of saving the genes for future testing and breeding. This
could be
done best by nutgrafting. Those interested will find a detailed
description of how to make nut grafts in Ed Greenwell's paper at:
http://www.accf-online.org/chestnut/nutgrafting.htm
GRAFTING REPORT
This was a mediocre year for me. I have
just 25
new grafts, including two that were made by Jenny Cooper.
Overall a
total of 125 of my grafts survive on 9 different sites. Carl
Mayfield reports a total of 50 ACCF nutgrafts, which includes 30
new
nutgrafts this year.
Burnie & Essie Burnworth attended April
grafting
lessons and have reported 4 of their grafts at Stronghold, MD, are
growing well.
Grafting invitation: learn chestnut-grafting
techniques
at Virginia Tech in April of 2004, by appointment on a morning of your
choice.
This invitation is open to all growers who send an additional donation
to
support ACCF research. Please respond in February, suggest
two dates
(from which I could choose one) and indicate how many grafts you plan
to
attempt, so that we may have enough scionwood to share with you.
GROWERS' REPORT
If you followed our recommendation to plant on
well-drained sites, 2003 was a great growing year throughout the East.
I have counted 191 survivors, and my tallest
from a
2002 nut direct-seeded is 2 feet! A few of my 2- and 3-year-olds
have
doubled their height. While our Western growers hauled water, we
pulled
weeds and cut competing trees. American chestnut seedlings hardly
ever
succeed without a good deal of work.
Ed's Nathan Pease American chestnut is
still
looking good, but my graft of it will not be large enough to begin its
blight-resistance test until 2005.
Thanks very much for reporting!
We have so
far received reports from 114 growers of 4,166 ACCF
chestnuts
surviving in 2003. Sometimes I wonder if everyone understands that
total of ACCF
seedlings surviving means the grand total for all years
plantings. We
accept additions and corrections. Late reports will
be added
to the above numbers as they are received..
This past year we sent 7,627 seedlings and 6,917
seednuts
to cooperating growers in 37 states and Ontario.
SEEDNUTS
We are expecting a smaller crop of seednuts here in
Virginia
because of the very heavy and frequent rains during pollination
time.
Each grower may request 15 nuts, but we will probably run out of
seed
earlier than we did last winter (January 21).
I did not put many control bags in the Miles
and Ruth
grafts, thus many more of their open pollinated nuts may go out to our
most
reliable, reporting growers.
Looking out our dining room window, I saw
female
flowers in our Pie chestnut's crown. In between rains, I
tossed into
its upper branches the catkins leftover from this year's controlled
crosses.
These father trees may give this year's Pie nuts many more interesting
possibilities, so they also will go only to our growers who have
reported.
HARRY HOTINE SCHOLARSHIP
We have awarded the graduate student, Eric
Hogan, a research scholarship in memory of my father, a
self-educated man
who knew and loved the trees, all the Latin as well as common names,
and was a
great believer in education and hard work. With this scholarship
we
recognize Eric's contribution to American chestnut research through
long hours
of careful work in the laboratory.
OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS
Many thanks again to John Buschmann, John
Buschmann, Jr, and the Jones Family for pitching in and
supporting
our work in the Lesesne State Forest.
Once again, Violet Pesinkowski (NY) and Carl
Mayfield (VA) have been extremely generous in support of the
graduate
student research at Virginia Tech.
Mark Depoy, Mammoth Cave National Park, (KY)
was
responsible for planting 2,000 additional ACCF seedlings in our
National
Parks.
Thanks to Jason Kramer for engaging
Biology and
Botany students at Yough High School in a large project, raising
American
chestnuts from seed, planting them on Pennsylvania State Game Land and
sending
us an A+ report.
Thanks to John Knouse, who once again
sponsored and
manned an ACCF booth at an environmental fair in Athens, Ohio, we have
many
additional Ohio growers. And Laurie Spangler set up an
ACCF exhibit
at the Mill Mountain Zoo near Roanoke, VA.
Ken James (NY) continues his efforts to
maintain and
expand the largest American chestnut forest revival project outside
Virginia.
Charles Lytton, (VA) Giles County 4-H
Leader,
continues work with area school children, organizing help for harvest
at the
Martin American Chestnut Planting, as well as spring field trips
to area
chestnut-growing projects involving the children in planting,
maintenance and
reporting; he also distributes seednuts to school growing projects.
We now have over 1,000 on the mailing list and look
forward
to news about all those American chestnuts.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President,
Virginia Tech
Forest Pathology
Dave McCurdy,
Vice-president,
Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins,
Secretary,
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord College, Research Chemist,
Beckley, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer,
ChFC, Cool
Ridge, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of
Tennessee
chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, Cookeville, TN
FOUNDING FATHERS
Since the majority of you are new members, let us
introduce two deceased founding fathers, Al Dietz and Bruce Given, West Virginians whose
dedication to American Chestnut restoration made possible the Lesesne
project and our breeding program for blight resistance.
Al was an industrial chemist; Bruce worked for the West Virginia
Division of Forestry. Well before the ACCF was founded, they were
collecting American chestnuts, together and for separate projects.
Al took large quantities of American chestnut seed
to be irradiated, with the hope of inducing mutations favorable to
blight resistance. He made plantations of these seedlings in
cooperation with landowners throughout the East. The Lesesne is
his largest plantation; the Virginia Tech airport plot is among his
smallest. Stronghold, Inc. in Maryland, a new 2002 ACCF member,
is also a legacy of Al Dietz. We were able to test very few of
his trees (all at the Virginia Tech airport, but just a small number at
the Lesesne) for blight resistance and found only a few at the Lesesne
with low levels of blight resistance.
Al also discovered the Gault chestnut in Ohio, a
grandparent on both sides of our F2 cross, Miles x Ruth, with the best
chance right now to breed true for blight resistance.
Bruce Given was most interested in finding American
chestnuts with possible blight resistance and grafting them into
Chinese chestnut stocks to make all-American chestnut breeding possible
and to assemble an American chestnut collection at a West Virginia tree
nursery. Because of his nursery collections, we can distribute
American chestnut seedlings at cost to our members. Bruce spent
years refining bark grafting techniques, especially for American
chestnut replication; his work made our all-American chestnut breeding
program possible.
Bruce grafted the blight-resistant chestnuts (1980)
in the Lesesne, into the stocks of some of Al's trees which were
blight-susceptible; he make the big chestnut grafts which have become
the first demonstration within the natural range of a high level of
chestnut blight control. Bruce taught John Elkins to graft
chestnuts, and John taught me. We are fortunate to follow in
their footsteps.
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