Above: Nichols with a large 20″ DBH American chestnut he located last fall. It is severely blighted, the top is dead, and you can see the bark falling off the tree at the top of the photo.
Twenty five years ago, Herb Darling along with several others established the NY chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) to work with SUNY-ESF in Syracuse. The goal of researchers at ESF was to try to use the newest technology to develop a blight-resistant American chestnut. Their progress has been phenomenal, as you can see in this video. (Note that we have progressed beyond the stage in the video, to where we have confirmed resistance in our tree and are applying for approval to release it to the public. Also, there's a section unrelated to the American chestnut that you need to skip past).
Now comes the part of getting the blight-resistant trees into the forest. That is where you come in! We need people all over NY and in other states to plant pure wild American chestnuts so they have trees to cross with our blight-resistant tree, when it is approved for release, hopefully in the next few years.
This crossing will capture the genetic diversity of the remaining trees—those that get big enough to flower and produce pollen, but inevitably succumb to the blight—so that these future crossed trees will have enough genetic diversity to survive other stresses they may encounter in the future. We need to locate these wild American chestnut trees before they die so we can cross them with our blight-resistant tree as soon as we have permission to release it. We will have blight-resistant pollen available to do this as soon as we get approval.
The NY chapter of TACF sends nuts to all the NY members, free of charge, so they can start "mother" tree orchards, which the chapter can send you guidance on. Some considerations for making your own "two-tree orchard" can be found at the end of this post. Anyone interested in nuts to plant or more information on the NY chapter of TACF can contact Allen Nichols at 607-263-5105, or fajknichols.75@gmail.com or go here to read more or join our active chapter.
This Song was written in dedication to Allen Nichols' mother, Helen, on her 90th birthday and proceeds from this song support the New York State chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation.
Above: Nichols hands out seedlings at his talks and at fairs to anyone who wants to join TACF-NY, so they can start their "mother" tree orchard.
We need to plant mother trees now so we can produce blight resistant nuts as quickly as possible after our blight resistant tree is approved for release. There are several items that control how and why this is needed and done.
First is the fact that American chestnut trees are self-sterile so they need another tree for pollination to produce viable nuts.
Second is the fact that we do not want to plant two of the blight resistant trees adjacent to each other as the resulting nuts will be inbred. Therefore, initially we want to cross the blight resistant trees with nonresistant (also called wild type) trees to get good genetic diversity for the long range health of the American chestnut.
Third, with good sunlight an American chestnut will usually produce male catkins and pollen in about 5 years, but usually start producing female flowers, or burs, only after about 8 years.
Fifth, if two or more non-resistant "mother" trees are growing close together, and producing pollen, they will mostly pollinate each other and few or none of the resulting nuts will have been pollinated by the smaller and younger blight resistant tree.
Sixth is the fact that we expect to have our blight resistant tree approved for release to the public in 3 to 5 years.
I look forward to the new blight-resistant tree since I have now two producing chestnuts, crosses between American and Asians. Of course I also have elms and a green ash which I carefully watch.
I own a sizable Chinese chestnut grove at 102 Chase Road, Town of Granby,N.Y.
There is a deceased American Chestnut tree within the grove, about 12″ in diameter.
The grove is now infected with the Chestnut Weevil which makes the chestnut crop worthless.
Good article about a good program! I'm working with a volunteer group to locate up to fifty sites where the "wild" seedlings can be planted, protected and monitored on Long Island in 2016. Keep up the good work.