The American chestnut tree reigned over 200 million acres of eastern woodlands from Maine to Florida, and from the Piedmont plateau in the Carolinas west to the Ohio Valley, until succumbing to a lethal fungus infestation, known as the chestnut blight, during the first half of the 20th century. Another hope lies with engineering a transgenic chestnut. Interpreting Wetland Status. (Credit: American Chestnut Foundation), It sits alone in the middle of a pasture near Amherst, Virginia, full of healed-over cankers, its crown wracked by storms, but enduring. TACF National Office 50 North Merrimon Avenue, Suite 115, Asheville, NC 28804, Phone: 828-281-0047 Fax: 828-253-5373 chestnut@acf.org. Chestnut hybrids, grown at the Hashawa Environmental Center in Carroll County, MD. The blight may evolve, too.”, But “restoration” chestnuts may not be the only tool in our arsenal before long. American chestnut - Castanea dentata Native Range Border Related Maps. The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was one of the most common trees in the area. The American chestnut was once the king of the forest. Scientists believe that by crossing an American chestnut tree with its blight-resistant cousin, the Chinese chestnut, the tree will retain both its American traits (e.g., tall-growing) and the gene for blight resistance. Their profusion of bloom supported honeybees and other pollinators. Overview Information American chestnut is a plant. 1220 L Street, NW, Suite 750Washington, DC 20005, Phone: 202.737.1944 But now comes the best hope in over a century for restoring the species that once comprised a quarter of all eastern hardwoods, with economic and environmental values unmatched by anything in today’s forest. The American chestnut is native to southern and eastern parts of the United States, particularly along the Appalachian Mountains. ”. Among his concerns is whether we fully understand all the mechanisms chestnuts employ to resist the blight; also “Will the Chinese chestnut’s resistance, even if we put it all into an American tree, be enough? It was a magnificent tree used for lumber and for food. And before they died, the little chestnuts exhibited about the same response to the blight, forming only slight cankers, as he would have expected of naturally resistant Chinese chestnuts. Chestnuts dominated eastern hardwood forests not only in numbers; an estimated three to four billion trees across more than 30 million acres. Researchers have estimated that 1 out of every 4 trees in the Appalachian Mountains was an American chestnut. European chestnut (C. sativa) is also quite susceptible. But it’s clear this is more than a job to him. Free! By 1989 the American Chestnut Foundation had secured farmland to begin its research and breeding program at the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley in the small town of Meadowview, Virginia. Free! This species once was a dominant … Known as “redwoods of the East,” chestnuts grew fast and big, and lived long, reaching 100 feet in height, with diameters exceeding 12 feet, and attaining an average age of two to three centuries. Gary Griffin, Hebard’s PhD mentor at Virginia Tech, says these most ancient survivor trees almost all share a few characteristics. Burnworth explains that American chestnuts have an extraordinary ability to “release,” or spurt toward the light when surrounding canopy trees die. Plant and Tree Range Distribution Maps; Castanea dentata Map ; Castanea dentata - American chestnut Range Map. Related Links. Wetland Status. The “Amherst tree” is so large, so gnarled with age, and so rare that, like a few dozen other long-surviving chestnuts, it has been named. An estimated 4 billion American chestnuts, up to 1/4 of the hardwood tree population, grew within this range. Special Concern. That annual exuberance of the American chestnut began fading from the landscape around 1904, when a blight imported on Asian chestnuts began rampaging from Maine to Georgia. Tax ID: 53-0196544, © 2021 American Forests. “And?” And you get an award-winning magazine. They are high in fiber, vitamin C, protein, and carbohydrates, and low in fat. More Accounts and Images; ARS Germplasm Resources Information Network (CADE12) Flora of … “Chestnut brown was considered the most beautiful shade of a woman’s hair, and the man who had a chestnut beard was usually considered handsome… silks and satins were available in chestnut brown,” wrote 101-year-old Georgia Miller of Pennsylvania a few years ago, recalling her childhood in chestnut forests. When you decide to start planting American chestnut trees, it’s important to begin early in the spring. American chestnut. To develop resistance to the blight, young trees are inoculated with samples of the chestnut blight fungus. An American Chestnut Tree planted inside Bernheim’s Arboretum Prior to the 1900s, the American chestnut tree once dominated over 200 million acres of the eastern hardwood forest from Maine to Georgia, and west to the Ohio River Valley. The main concession to how the forest has changed since the chestnut last dominated will be a sturdy deer fence (“Please, make deer reduction the lead of your story,” implored one chestnut breeder). Many clear-cuts literally explode with long-suppressed chestnuts racing for the light. The American chestnut was one of the largest trees in the forests of eastern North America. His funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, which is interested in how viruses work; the chestnut hypovirulence is one of the easiest ways to study this, Nuss says. With the state chapters, we’ll put millions of these trees throughout their range.” They will go, Hebard says, on available lands in national forests, on private property, and also to reforest abandoned strip-mined sites across Appalachia in a partnership with the federal Office of Surface Mining. A project to spot chestnuts sprouting within sight of the Appalachian Trail has so far turned up more than 40,000, Burnworth says. (Credit: Melissa Boyle). The profound impact forests had on one of America’s greatest authors and his writing. When cross-pollinated with another chestnut tree by an insect pollinator, the female flowers develop into spiny bur-like fruits enclosing one to several chestnuts. American chestnut was once the most important tree of the Eastern North American Hardwood Forest. “Meanwhile,” he says, “we’re going to plant. It’s possible that hypovirulence might help, in Hebard’s words, “to put the, These restoration chestnuts at Meadowview Research Farm show resistance to the blight. The American Chestnut was once the giant of the Appalachian forest canopy. Of literally billions of chestnuts growing in the tree’s historic range when the blight hit, only dozens of pre-blight survivors struggle on in the wild today. A native of Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill suburb, he’s not given to talking much about matters other than the science of chestnuts. Remnant root systems are resilient and continue to send up new shoots that eventually succumb to the blight. For more details on the American chestnut tree, please visit our Field Guide page. American chestnut grew over a wide range in eastern North America. One of the funders of that project is Duke Energy, which is interested in the chestnut’s potential to reclaim coal-mining land, but also in its promise for sequestering carbon dioxide. That’s the merest wisp of what Peattie described; “But we’re excited,” says Meghan Jordan of the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF), which supplied the trees. All evidence is that if the blight can be overcome, the chestnut can outcompete most any other hardwood to become part of the forest canopy. It is present in parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania. Burnham and other scientists in 1983 founded the private, nonprofit American Chestnut Foundation to carry out a scientific program of backcross breeding. (Credit: American Chestnut Restoration Foundation/USDAFS). Griffin has one tree, grafted in the early 1980s, that is now 24 inches in diameter and close to 70 feet tall. Michigan. Scientists think the problems lie partly in the large number of strains in which both blight and hypovirulence occur. Most were nearly barren of branches for 50 feet or better, living up to what would become their nickname, “the redwood of the East.” These were massive trunks, some 16 … Scientific Name Scientifically, American chestnut is called Castanea Dentate Description American chestnut plant bears three nuts enfolded in each […] The hypovirus here may make the blight too weak, so that it can’t spread in a less destructive form; in effect, vaccinating the chestnuts it encounters against the full-strength blight. A pure Chinese chestnut, resistant to the blight. There’s also an ancient chestnut tree that Fred Hebard directs you to on your route home from Meadowview. Complementary programs would be added throughout the historic range of the chestnut as the foundation’s state chapters grew to include 15 states. Most American chestnuts today are killed by the chestnut blight by the time they reach 15 feet in height. Silvicultural trials allow us to learn how chestnut grows under different forest management scenarios. That’s the merest wisp of what Peattie described; “But we’re excited,” says Meghan Jordan of the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF), which supplied the trees. With this latest hybrid, unofficially dubbed the “Restoration” chestnut, breeders feel they have a tree with enough of the Chinese chestnut’s natural blight resistance to have a shot at surviving; but also a tree that is virtually indistinguishable in form, growth rate, and wood quality from a pure American chestnut. (Credit: Vicky Sawyer). (Credit: American Chestnut Foundation). Learn how to identify American chestnuts and send us a sample to support our research. There are now only 100 or so that remain. The story of the native American tribes is strikingly similar to that of the American chestnut (Castanea dentata). Map Legend. Existing trials have examined planting in gaps of various sizes, clearcuts, closed canopy, shelterwoods, and multi-step management prescriptions. Then they do it all over again, generation after generation, hoping that genetic theory, forecasting a chestnut worthy of reintroduction after six crosses, corresponds to reality. Silvicultural and reintroduction trials provide an opportunity to experiment with planting chestnuts on field and forested sites. In the next couple years, Hebard says, there will be larger-scale, more formal experiments testing the latest generation of trees’ resistance alongside Chinese chestnuts. Chestnut wood was used to make furniture, shingles, siding, telephone poles, and fence posts. “This means that our goal after 25 years has moved from breeding a chestnut that can survive to working on landscape-level restoration.”. By Tom Horton, Healthy American chestnuts in Lesesne State Park. Last year, Hebard challenged his first few sixth-generation “restoration” chestnuts by inoculating them with blight. Between 1946 and 1963 it grew arrow-straight and tall like an American chestnut, reaching 76 feet before succumbing to blight in 1976. He expects that this will allow researchers to produce a chestnut that is pure American except for the addition of a few genes from the Chinese chestnut that confer disease-resistance. You cross Chinese and American parent trees, then breed successive generations back to the desired (American) parent, eventually winnowing out all the undesired Chinese characteristics (shrubby growth, for example) except for its disease-resistance. Planting will continue in national forests. The loss of the chestnut was an ecological calamity with few equals. “Oh, they all died.” For example, a Green Mountain National Forest planting, ma… Researchers say they are strong performers, reaching three to seven feet, some flowering at an earlier age than normal. Native range of the American chestnut tree (castanea dentata). It was a huge, majestic tree, with a very straight stem. Just as the chestnut blight appears here to stay, so does the movement to restore the chestnut to its place in the forest. A mature chestnut’s sweet, carroty-tasting nuts—as many as 6,000 from a single tree — were nearly a perfect food for both settlers and their livestock, as well as an array of wildlife from turkeys to bears. The USDA had been crossing American to Chinese chestnuts generation after generation. A chestnut with a disease-resistant wheat gene has already been produced experimentally by researchers William Powell and Charles Maynard at the State University of New York’s Environmental Science and Forestry school in Syracuse. Today as we prowl the forests, its hard to think in the past tense and visualize that Castanea dentata, the American However, the species was devastated by chestnut blight, a fungal disease that came from introduced chestnut trees from East Asia. Lifespan American chestnuts that are not blight-resistant live only about five years. A Purdue University study shows that the growth rate, size and longevity of chestnuts let them store more carbon, and at a faster rate, than any other hardwood. If there was an “Aha!” moment in bringing American chestnuts back this far from the brink, it came around 1980 when Charles Burnham, a corn geneticist, read of the shutdown of a decades-long, failed attempt by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to breed a resistant chestnut. Even the Boy Scouts pitched in to try and save the chestnuts, scouring forests for blighted trees as part of a multi-state effort to create an infection-free zone. Range. Griffin, an emeritus professor of plant pathology, has been working since 1973 grafting tissue from old survivors (and younger ones that have made it to about 15 inches in diameter) onto American chestnut rootstock, crossing these to one another. (Credit: American Chestnut Foundation), “He was haunted by the ghosts of these old chestnuts, by the great emptiness their extinction had left in the world. The key is a concept known as backcrossing. He explains that such a dose probably would have killed even resistant Chinese chestnuts. At the University of Maryland’s Biotechnology Center in Shadyside, virologist Donald Nuss has been dissecting the American strains of hypovirulence, trying to understand why they don’t spread as easily in the wild here as they do in Europe. Researchers say they are strong performers, reaching three to seven feet, some flowering at an earlier age than normal. Native range of the American chestnut tree (castanea dentata) The American chestnut tree reigned over 200 million acres of eastern woodlands from Maine to Florida, and from the Piedmont plateau in the Carolinas west to the Ohio Valley, until succumbing to a lethal fungus infestation, known as the chestnut blight, during the first half of the 20th century. “Pretty good.”. By the 1950s destruction was complete. This planting, at a place fittingly known as Chestnut Ridge, will intersperse the chestnuts with other native species — white pine, red oak, black cherry, sugar maple — “the first attempt to see how they compete in a real-world situation,” says Sara Fitzsimmons, another chestnut researcher at Penn State. Then breeders wait years for the offspring to grow, inoculate them with blight, and select as few as one out of every 150 trees that show the best resistance and most American-like growth habit. The American chestnut is a broad-leaf tree belonging to the beech family. The American chestnut was one of the most important forest trees throughout its range and was considered the finest chestnut tree in the world. *Are you enjoying this post? “They have some natural resistance, they are infected by the hypovirulence, and they have very good growing environments.”. If you could custom design the ideal tree species, you couldn’t come up with a better one than American chestnut. Nor has the chestnut itself ever really gone away, notes Essie Burnworth, head of the ACF’s Maryland chapter: “There are millions of them around, sprouting from old stumps, sitting as seedlings in the forest understory, just waiting for light to grow.”. Now, thanks to collaboration between the U.S. Forest Service, The American Chestnut Foundation and institutions like the University of Tennessee Tree Improvement Program, those blight-resistant trees are on the horizon, and scientists are developing silvicultural strategies to restore them to forests across their former range. (Courtesy photo American Chestnut Foundation) Sometimes reaching a height of more than 100 feet tall with trunk diameters often well over 10 feet, the American chestnut was the giant of the eastern U.S. forests. Before the species was devastated by the chestnut blight, a fungal disease, it was one of the most important forest trees throughout its range. Interactive Koppen Climate Classification Map for the United States; Chinese chestnut (C. mollissima) is resistant; a small canker can occur. (Credit: American Chestnut Restoration Foundation/USDAFS). All Rights Reserved. The trees grow best when American chestnut tree nuts are sown directly in the ground (with the flat side or sprout facing down, half an inch to an inch (1-2.5 cm.) The American chestnut rose 100, sometimes 120, feet above the loamy forest floor. deep) as soon as the soil is workable. Burnham had always assumed that program, which crossed thousands of American and Chinese trees since the 1930s, would eventually succeed. Fred Paillet, a University of Arkansas geoscientist who often writes on chestnuts, has taken the long view. It has elongate leaves tapered at both ends and large teeth along the margins. It was beloved by timbermen for re-sprouting readily from the stump and reaching diameters of two feet or more in little over half a century; an oak on similar soils would take a couple centuries to add as much wood. It is the only species of chestnut native to Canada. So far, neither the hypovirulence or his transgenic blight seem able to spread efficiently on their own in the wild, which would be essential for becoming effective across the landscape. The little trees represent the sixth generation of a breeding program begun by the 6,000-member ACF in 1989. Consider supporting American Forests to help us continue our work to restore, and grow healthy and resilient forests and city canopies all over the country! Its nuts were consumed by animals and people alike, and it was widely used as timber. It is also adaptable to different soils and climates, and established plants can withstand drought. The American chestnut is a large tree with brown, smooth buds and twigs. The leaves and bark of the plant are used to make medicine. While the Chestnut Foundation’s new, resistant trees are the first soldiers to be deployed against the blight, other ongoing programs could soon bear fruit: a chestnut genetically engineered for blight resistance; genetically altered strains of the blight fungus itself that weaken it; and, farther from success, breeding a pure native with resistance by crossing old survivor chestnuts to one another. These trees once reached the height of 30.5 … The American chestnut is not extinct. The extinction of the passenger pigeon, and the near extinction of bison — all around the same time — were in the same ballpark. For two decades now, this historic quest has fallen to Fred Hebard, a taciturn, almost shy plant researcher who has directed the Meadowview facility from the beginning. American chestnut is a member of the beech family. But because of its size and rather coarse look, and the possible litter of the prickly nut husks, it might be best-suited to a woodlot or semi-wild area. Approximately 15⁄16ths American and 1⁄16th Chinese, “It’s probably not the best tree we can achieve, but it’s good enough to start planting,” says Kim Steiner, director of Penn State University’s arboretum, and a science advisor to the Chestnut Foundation. There is a lot of incompatibility, which retards spreading; also, European chestnuts probably have a little more natural resistance than American chestnuts, which allows the hypoviruses to work more easily there. Once these crosses produced trees that were carrying chiefly the American chestnut genome — as much as 90 percent — they were ... state and national sites in the chestnut’s historical range. This article was published in the Winter 2010 issue of American Forests magazine. Fred Hebard says he’s seen understory chestnuts only an inch in diameter that show 60 years of growth rings, followed by growth that approaches an inch a year after they get access to light. Reaching over 30 metres tall and living up to 500 years, the chestnut was known as “the queen of eastern American forest trees.” So what happened to what was once also called the “redwood of the East?” The American Chestnut Foundation is working to restore the chestnut to its natural range. Only hundreds of latest-generation nuts have been available to date, but this fall’s harvest was 13,000, and the numbers will grow geometrically. get minor bark infections that can produce inoculum. The goal has been to develop a blight-resistant strain of the tree and, over time, reintroduce it to its natural range. The past tense and visualize that Castanea dentata ), whose native encompasses! 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