Thanks for posting that link. Interesting article. It surprises me how dominating American Chestnut was in forests prior to the blight; I wonder just what features made it such a potent competitor vs. oak, maple, etc...?

I'm not looking forward to scads of those spiny seed covers ('burs' per Native Trees for North American Landscapes) (or whatever you call them) though.

Speaking of which, if blight-resistant genetically modified American Chestnut trees work out & become widely available, how many of you forum goers would plant one yourselves? Evidently they get huge, and the spiny burs look like bad news for a residential yard (if you like bare footing, or have pets).

Richard.

Interesting question indeed. Genetic engineering is somewhat a can of worms. Look at the trouble we get in with grafted and clumsily engineered trees like the Bradford Pear.

In the end if it has a good report I suppose I would plant one of these chestnuts.

My thinking:

I have a couple acer palmatum trees which are grafts of mutated (naturally maybe?) acer pamatums. This metasequoia ogon I have was created in a lab if I recall the irradiated seed story correctly. All essentially genetically modified, none listed as invasive.

Round-up ready food. Invasive, not my favorite, but I buy it. It is only a stone's throw from all these apples and other fruit we have modified through selective breeding.

I give my kid medicine when he is sick. This is going to allow him to reach adult hood and pass on his genes. Reverse evolution? Maybe, to this point it has helped humans spread. However in the long run it might make the species weaker but our brains have evolved ways to keep us going faster than our natural enemies have evolved. Same for me, that gall bladder problem probably would have gotten me by now if I were in the wild so score 1 for passing on genes which should not be passed on again.

Hitting again on the apple point, we have been genetically modifying dogs, cows, pigs and plants for 10k years through selective breeding so I am not "against it". Scientific modification has the potential for quicker mishaps though as we can make weird changes in small creatures which maybe will have a butterfly effect on the world around them.

Was that the question?

Well, there was this question...

"I wonder just what features made it such a potent competitor vs. oak, maple, etc...? "

which is something I'm now wondering too...

I'd plant one in a minute. I've already got 6 various chestnuts planted, mostly hybrids of European and Asian types. I got my first real harvest last fall, a pound or so, yummy!

And, they're beautiful trees. I do admit, it was a painful experience gathering the nuts, definitely a job for heavy gloves, but no worse than pruning the blackberry patch.

I picked up one some years ago from an arboretum. Always just thought it was a Chinese chestnut but now that it's bearing nuts it isn't. It's either an early version of a resistant American or a hybrid with distinctively American chestnut seed.

It's an amazingly beautiful tree, heavily built, lowly branched and with beautiful foliage. One of my favs of all the trees I've planted and disgustingly healthy so far. Over the years we have lost (and increasingly are losing) some of our most precious woodlands to the lure of cheap imported products with their devastating bugs and diseases. How many billions of dollars of damage is it worth? How cheap are those imports at the cash register when you factor in exterpated forests and domestic damage control?

I would love to have one....

vince

"I wonder just what features made it such a potent competitor vs. oak, maple, etc...?"

The original American chestnut tree grows very fast. Its habit in a woodland setting is very tall. Mature trees produce many nuts, and those nuts are a preferred food source of all manner of wildlife. I'm certain that the eastern gray squirrel is also a large part of its success.

I have been a casual observer of the eastern gray for a long time and wonder what impact the loss of the American chestnut had on its evolution. There are stories about those squirrels being rather large critters in olden times. I'll bet a steady diet of chestnuts didn't hurt the taste of squirrel.

"I have been a casual observer of the eastern gray for a long time and wonder what impact the loss of the American chestnut had on its evolution. There are stories about those squirrels being rather large critters in olden times."

Probably very little impact....after 60 years of Chestnut blight, squirrel population would change but a change in size needs a stronger and longer duration evolutionary pressure than that. Besides, they are such opportunistic feeders and have no shortage of food in urban areas, I would say, given your hypothesis they should be as they ever were right now.

If American Chestnut is such a fast growing tree, how strong is the wood? Are we talking the durability of Silver Maple or Tulip Poplar or what?

Richard.

Chestnut? We had an old barn on a property that had American chestnut siding - Lovely stuff! After 100 years (The barn was "old" in the 1920's), the wood still looks perfectly fine. Chestnut wood was well-known as a durable, decay-resistant wood. Old bleached snags can still be seen standing today, where Chestnut was common.

I've got a couple "timburr" chestnuts that I bought from Oikos tree crops up in Michigan this spring - They're supposed to have the most American-like growth in a hybrid chestnut. Has anyone ever grown this with success?

Jbob

I bought a "Vigor" American chestnut hybrid from oikos. It will grow to 70 feet in 25 years and is just startign to leaf out. Historically, the American Chestnut was an amazing forest tree that grew best on north facing slopes. It grew upwards to 160 feet and up to 17 feet in diameter. Truly massive tree with fast growth and durable wood.

toro,
'Bradford' wasn't 'engineered' - just selected from batch of callery seedlings and propagated, albeit far too extensively.

I'd plant one - actually, you need two or more that are not clones of each other, so I'd plant more - but NOT in my yard. I like to go barefoot from time to time, and the spines from those burs take years to decompose enough that they won't penetrate tennis/walking shoe uppers.
GMO doesn't scare me one bit.

Hard to imagine how very different the eastern deciduous forest was from what we have today, just over 100 years ago - oaks, hickories, and maples were NOT the dominant canopy in many areas.

The American chestnut became the dominant tree because as a youngster it tolerates the shade of the under-story and patiently waits for a break in the canopy, and then zooms up through it in rapid growth. The loss of the mast from the native nut trees was primarily responsible for the loss of the carrier pidgeon.

I'd really like to know if it's ever been done successfully- grafting a chestnut to either a chinquapin or a bur oak (alkaline and heat tolerant Texas natives)- any replies I thankyou in advance and know that you are helping advance knowledge.

Mackel

Mackel,
While oaks and chestnuts are both in the same family, I have some doubts that they are closely-related enough for a graft of chestnut onto an oak understock would be viable in the long term.
However, if you'll check out the link below, there are folks who claim to have had some degree of success; I might have to give it a try.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chestnut on oak?

Maybe I should be looking for a pecan root stock, that should work. A hican. Either way, I'd like to roast some chestnuts on an open fire, it's just so Americana, in fact, people who live in Texas love our country so much, we decided to become a united state. Personally, I'm a chestmelon man, but trees come in a strong second.

No. Oaks are more closely related to chestnuts than are pecans/hicans/hickories.
Oaks & Chestnuts are Fagaceae
Pecan/hickory/hican are in the walnut family, Juglandaceae.

What is a hican but a pecan grafted to a hickory, now please tell me Lucky about peckory, that is what they'dcallit. In the pursuit of Americana,

Mackel

mackel,
Hicans are hybrid crosses of pecan with one of the other hickory species - most named-variety hicans are hybrids with either shagbark hickory(C.ovata) or shellbark hickory(C.laciniosa), but I've also seen hybrids with C.aquatica and C.cordiformis.
I have several hicans grafted and growing here, a few that have fruited - mostly pecanXshellbark hybrids, like those in the photo linked below

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:345990}}

'I wonder just what features made it such a potent competitor vs. oak, maple, etc...?'

couple of things. as mentioned, extrememly fast growing. Also, unlike oaks, chestnut produces a consistent mast - large crop of nuts - every year. They are also crazy sprouters, so if damaged, they will resprout, like boxelder

'If American Chestnut is such a fast growing tree, how strong is the wood? Are we talking the durability of Silver Maple or Tulip Poplar or what?'

Chestnut wood is more durable than other fast growing trees because it is high in rot-resisting tannin. However, it is lighter than oak, and splits easily along the axis (which is GREAT if you want fence posts, but NOT good if you want furniture)

'"timburr" chestnuts that I bought from Oikos tree crops':

I have (had) 2. One died but probably had too much shade. The other is doing pretty well, but i get a lot of dieback. It COULD be because i am in zone 4. The timburr is noticeably more 'chinese' in appearance than other hybrids. I have had a lot more luck with Oikos' 'Viva' strain - although they say it might get blight and die.

disclamier: I have about a dozen chestnuts in a fairly large back yard. People at work (and my wife) think i am crazy because i won't stop talking about chestnuts. If you are not a 'nutter', look for a book called 'American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree' - it is AMAZING what happened to the eastern forests! And by the way, chestnuts are not really good for a yard due to the mess, but great for acreages, orchards and of course the forest!

I am a "nutter", and resistant american chestnut is something i dream about. I would definitely plant one (or a hundre) in a heartbeat.

I truly hope this breed can be successful, and we see a slew of these trees being planted in the near future.

"Probably very little impact....after 60 years of Chestnut blight, squirrel population would change but a change in size needs a stronger and longer duration evolutionary pressure than that. Besides, they are such opportunistic feeders and have no shortage of food in urban areas, I would say, given your hypothesis they should be as they ever were right now."

I'm sure you believe what you said, but I can offer evidence to the contrary. When I was learning to drive in the mid 60's, squirrels were different. When the ran into the road and then saw a car coming, they would start to dart around in circles. Obviously this behavior might be successful trying to avoid a bird of prey, but it was not well suited to avoiding a car.

These days the eastern grey squirrel runs in a straight line. No more darting in circles. I noticed the change about 10 years ago.

My brother has a PhD in psychometrics. When I told him of this observation, he agreed that it was very plausible that a genetic change has occurred.

That's only 40 some years to see a change in a mammal. The American chestnut died off 80 years ago. I believe that today's squirrel is different, smaller, because of the loss of American chestnut.

Good luck to you.

The problem with that idea is, squirrels can eat a lot of other things, and there are scads of acorns and pecans in some areas, and gray squirrels in such areas aren't real large. Fox squirrels, on the other hand, are. I'm thinking gray squirrels are the size they are because that's been a good functional size to be, not because they're stunted for a lack of food.

Richard.

The genetics are the same after one hundred years in a species, but the emphasis of certain genes can change. For example, the reaction to run in a straight line was already present in the squirrel, from somehwere in the specie's past, it's just that portion of the gene code became more present and selected for, because it became more important to survival. The gene code can resort...but...

Fundamental changes in the gene code, rather than deemphasis and reemphasis, that are beneficial to the specie's survival occur in only one out of then thousand mutations. All of the rest of the mutations are deleterious to the individual and species carrying them. So most mutations actually have a negative pressure on the viability of a species, so change occurs very slow in this regard, in order to assure mutancy doesn't wipe the species out. I'd say more, but I get incoherent on Saturdays...

Mackel

We planted three test Chestnuts from the American Chestnut Foundation some years ago in three different yards in the neighborhood. Unfortunately none of them lived longer than two years. Unusual considering 99% of the young trees I transplant survive. Wondering if some progress has been made in producing Chestnuts that will survive. Would love to plant a couple for posterity.

I would like to plant a few of the american chestnuts here i Europe where the chestnut blight has not yet come. But they seem to be hard to come by here, the european chestnut is totally dominating the market and if you find something else it is a japanese one

I would plant them in a heartbeat. I grew up in a old Detroit suburb with a pair of mature chestnuts at the end of the block guarding the old synagogue grounds, and many others on the grounds of former state farms and groves. I suspect they are hybrids, or one-offs but so am I. ;0)
While they may not be the best for barefoot walking or even keds/converse safe, every child knew the right way to step and watch out for them. The endless games of chestnut dodge ball were a right of passage for the brave of heart. Fond memories, right there.

One of them may still partially stand, but after living at least a hundred years, (state farm was established in the 1860s,trunk size was huge, and my knowledge) suffering the blight, and at least 2 lightning strikes in my memory, it was one sad looking grand dame when I last saw it.

My mother actually tried to grow some before she passed, but even she couldn't get them to root. She could grow a rock, but these were one of her few failures. I would love to someday plant a few for her and know they have a fair shot!

I have planted 100% American Chestnut from a seed source in OH. They came with the "will likely die from the blight" statement, but I wanted one. Last couple of years I had nuts. This year most of the tree is dead. I've watched the blight take my Chinkapins, now my 12 year old Chestnut. The Chinkapins are fine, they are not a big tree anyways, and can send out replacements fast enough to keep a bearing group around. The Chestnuts also have stump sprouts, but it takes them a dozen years to make nuts as opposed to 3 or 4 for their smaller cousin the Chinkapin.

If they bred a C. dentata that was even only resistant (not immune) to the blight, I would plant more in a heartbeat.

I too have several Oikos hybrids. They are blooming for the first time this year, I am anxious to see what the nuts are like.

One interesting thing is that Chestnut was used for the horizontals in the Pennsylvania Dutch barns. Uprights were oak (for their greater compression strength?), but the siding and the floor logs were all chestnut in my barn. (Siding is now steel.) The "carrier beams" that underpin the chestnut floor logs are oak also. One great advantage to chestnut is that it is almost as strong as oak for many applications, but the weight is less than 1/2 as much.

I went out and took some pics of what blight looks like for those who may have not seen it before. I hope this isn't hijacking Sam's thread.

First, the Chinkapin pics. These trees are smaller cousins of C. dentata, Am. chestnut. Nuts are smaller, trees are smaller. They fruit in 3 or 4 years. There are at least 2 races of Chinkapin. There are more than that in literature, but my experience is with 2 quite different versions of almost identical trees.

One grows tall, to 15ft. in less than 10 years, and has zero years to live when you first see the effects of the blight. Makes lots of nuts, generally about 5 days less than the other kind. The burrs have about 3 edible nuts and as many or more blanks, making for a rather large burr for the 3 nuts you get.

The other variety grows only 8-10 ft. tall and lives for a few years with the blight. The nuts are smaller and not quite as numerous, but the burr holds about 2 good nuts and only one or 2 blanks, so it makes a much smaller burr overall.

These are the different Chinkapins growing here. Seeds from the same man in OH.

The first is the short kind. The three photos show the clump from a wide angle, the new trees coming up, and a view of where they come from the root.
{{gwi:345992}}

This one (below) also shows bloom on a 2yr. whip at the right of center. Spent bloom on the older trunks are to the upper left.
{{gwi:345993}}

This is a ground level shot. It shows the multiple trunks and 2 stumps on the right.
{{gwi:345994}}

This is a wide shot of the tall kind. The shrub on the right, Chionanthus vir. is not as close as it would seem.
It is hard to get more than one or 2 tall trees before they succumb, and they can die any month of the year. This variety also makes bloom in the fall (late Sep.) if the trunk is about to die.
{{gwi:345995}}

This is a clump of Am. chestnut. The dead top shows it died after leaves came out this year.
{{gwi:345996}}

This is what blight looks like. I took the bark off, and the borers showed up after the tree was dead.
{{gwi:345998}}

This is unadulterated blight. The bark turns cinnamon before it splits, probably the blight spores? The smaller trunk at the right is the trunk of the photo of the dead top.
{{gwi:346001}}

Finally, the reason I keep these trees. Before somebody flames me for contributing to the blight problem, you should know that Chestnut blight is hiding in all the Red Oaks around here, waiting for a North American Castanea to infect.
I just love the dainty hooks on the young leaves, the russet new leaves, the shiny pleated symmetry of the older leaves.
{{gwi:346004}}

Have you tried Go Native Tree Farm's chestnut? I noticed they have a so-called blight resistant (emphasis on resistant) American chestnut, not a hybrid. I'd buy one, but I'd love to hear someone else's opinion on it!

I have just recently become aware of the American Chestnut problem and the blight and the research and progress made in trying to restore the trees. I jumped on the band wagon, immediately and have bought seed stock and seedling stock of American Chestnuts. I have a total of 10 seedlings and about 150 seeds ... some of which, I have already planted in the ground, some in pots that are stratifying, some in pots, indoors and some of the seeds are stratifying in the refrigerator. I am "more-than-anxious" for Spring to arrive ... to see if / what kind of results that I will get, from my efforts, so far.

@ jimbobfeeny Go Native Tree Farm told me they get their chestnuts by planting a large grouping and killing off all the ones that show blight.Those that are not killed are breed and those are the disease resistant trees they sell. They are great people and I hightly recommend their trees. Here is a cool pic of an american chestnut
{{gwi:346007}}

For the fellow in Europe who wants american chestnuts: there are some in Estonia, as I sent seed nuts there and they grew. They came up 2012, so it will be a while till the owner has seednuts to share. If you check back with me and are still interested, I'll pass your name to the other guy who now has some. Perhaps if you keep in touch, he will save you some of the first few seednuts???? I have young trees only, so can't send you seednuts off mine. Once in a while a buddy in Nova Scotia sends me nuts and I have enough to share.

OIKOS "Timburr" hybrid chestnuts (90%+ American) grow well here. My biggest is 15' x 15'. The leaves are indistinguishable from Amer chestnut. No sign of blight.

This is a pure Chinese chestnut in a woods setting. It is one of 6 out of 28 that are tree shaped, rather than bush shaped. The other full siblings are are bushes and I am roguing them. They are resistant to blight, and as there are 6 good ones, there may be seednuts in a while. Siblings may not pollinate, so no guarentees. If they can pollinate pure american dentatas, there will be an opportunity to breed blight resistant local chestnuts, mostly pure dentatas, but with a little mollissima in them. I'm in Canada, and don't yet have seednuts to share, but would be happy to share with any Canadians or others with an import permit. I would expect another 4 or 5 years though, so the American Chestnut Foundation may have theirs ready for public release before then. If not, well, I'll share.

Dzitmoidonc, if you're still reading, take some wet mud & pack it tightly & smoothly in the blight cankers or any bark opening. It will dry & stay in place. I tried this w/some success on standard Amer chestnut "sprouts" that used to be common in SW VA (I got one sprout to 30' tall before I moved). There are some fungi normally present in mud that can inhibit the blight fungi.

Interesting - I'll have to order a few from GoNative in the spring!

To beng: An American Chestnut addict here with more than 50 years of interest, propagation and research. This is the first time I have heard reference to packing mud around/in blight cankers.

Your statement, "There are some fungi normally present in mud that can inhibit the blight fungus"....opens up a new area of broad investigation both in the field and in the lab. Perhaps it is research which has already been done and somehow I have missed it. Can you provide further direction on the subject?

I have some of the Oikos hybrids, but they just don't grow well for me. I think I'm a little too far south for their liking.

I also have some of the Dunstan hybrids that grow well, but they have the bushy form of pure Chinese. Pruning is certainly needed to make them grow straight.

nandina, the sprout I was "treating" was just getting the trunk-bark cracking that allows the fungus to get a hold. One crack was infected, but after the mud-pack (I had to redo the mud-pack every yr), the canker healed & the tree shot up! Other untreated sprouts were dying as usual.

Bottom line is tho, you really can't do that on a mature tree, the bark-cracks would appear on up the tree trunk & branches by the dozens. That said, where I was in SW VA there was an untreated 50', 16 inch dia Amer chestnut nearby that had no sign of infection. I reasoned it was just one dang lucky tree.

Alabama, my largest "Timburr" hybrid chestnut isn't growing as upright (15' x 15') as OIKOS advertises, tho the leaves look exactly like pure Amer chestnut.

This post was edited by beng on Mon, Jan 7, 13 at 11:25

nandina, all I remember is reading about the "mud-pack" treatment somewhere in the literature many yrs ago (mid 1990's).

I'd love to try one of the new Chestnuts that the ACF is breeding...but I'm not sure how they'll do in my limestone-based soil.

Not sure either, how sweet a soil they can tolerate. The soil here is very sour, pH about 4.5 or less in the woods. I think they get chlorotic and short of iron in sweet soils. Someone else will have to comment on that, grin.

I tried a hybrid american chestnut on my limestone based soil. It got chlorotic and died. I wanted to try again so I bought another one and this time I put a pile of pine needles around the based of the tree in November. Hopefully this will help. If not I am going to try sprinkling some sulphur around it.
I seen chinese chestnuts growing in basic pH's with no problem but the American Chestnut seems to prefer a much lower pH.

Where in PA do you have alkaline soil? From what THIS map says, all of PA is at least slightly acid at least by default (not including disturbed soils I'm sure):

I'm in central Ohio (Delaware County, north of Columbus) right at the line between light blue and dark blue, and my pH is between 6.9 and 7.3 (which is relatively low for my area it turns out) depending on who does the test and where I take it on my property - the front yard is higher than the backyard...so, for me, the map is spot-on

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:260621}}

according to the map I am at pH 6.1 in Lehigh County PA. This cannot be right because American Chestnut can handle up to 6.4 pH yet mine still got chlorotic.
Also nobody in my neighborhood has had any success with rhodies or azaleas.
Here is a pic of my old chestnut that died:
{{gwi:346009}}

Nutsaboutnuts - can you post your sources for those seeds and seedlings? Are they all-American stock or hybrids? Thx in adv...

Greenthumbzdude- try sprinkling some aluminum sulfate around the base of your chestnut trees,and any other acid loving plants if they become chlorotic,if still having problems its an iron deficiency in the soil probably due to the higher pH.

Greenthumbzdude- try sprinkling some aluminum sulfate around the base of your chestnut trees,and any other acid loving plants if they become chlorotic,if still having problems its an iron deficiency in the soil probably due to the higher pH.