American Chestnuts

A friend of my sons' says he has a long line of what I think sounds like american chestnuts (about 36)...he says they are old and they are edible and have spiny nuts and flowers are like long things hanging down. I am going to get a picture and am wondering if anyone could tell when no leaves are on them. I think it would be interesting if they are in fact OLD castanea. They are growing apparently in a wet area.

The spiny nuts and flowers sounds right for chestnuts but these trees don't like wet feet. When you go to see them look on the ground for beech-like leaves. Chinese Chestnut foliage is shorter and by proportion wider and American leaves are longer and more narrow. Another thing is that our native trees are straight and tall but Chinese growth habit is more like an apple tree. If these are old trees and chestnuts they are most likely Chinese due to the blight that has killed off our natives. Hope this helps.

David

Thank you...I believe he was saying that they are very wide trees...so I bet they are Chinese. I will still try and take a picture....I was thinking it could not be true.

I placd my order yesterday for some of the hybrid chestnuts. It will interesting to see how tall they get.

Did you order from OIKOS? Did you go for their Timburr? That's the one I mentioned to you that I've been planting here.

Lauren, I bought one "Timburr" and one "ECOS".

Every now and then I'll come across an "orchard" of Chinese chestnuts in the strangest of places. I believe at one time, maybe in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a bit of a fad for planting these. Maybe there were mini-marketing campaigns, similar to what we see now and again for Paulownias.

The Timbur and Ecos hybrids from Oikos, are these 7/8th hybrids yet, or less?

Scott

Scott:

See here for all Ken has to say about these Castanea selections.

http://oikostreecrops.com/store/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=73&strPageHistory=cat

It appears that they are open-pollinated, with lots of resemblance to American chestnut but not necessarily screened for percent heritage.

I'm the reverse of you escambia, I planted one but maybe two ECOS and the rest were Timburr. At one point in time, many eastern hardwood forests were estimated at having been over 20% American Chestnut. The American Chestnut once played a vital role in our natural landscapes filling a niche for wildlife so I wanted to attempt to quasi re-create that niche using plants that had the greatest percentage of Castanea dentata dna. Back when I purchased, the ECOS and the Timburr were the best choices for my purposes. Right now I'm on hold buying any more from OIKOS as I want to wait it out for the blight-resistant chestnut seeds being released by Purdue.

Here's the link to Purdue's Improvement and Regeneration site-
http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/fnr/HTIRC/index.htm

Here's a link to The American Chestnut Foundation
http://www.acf.org/

These hybrids are purely experimental for me. When are the blight resistant American chestnut trees supposed to be released? It seems to keep get getting put off. With all of the pure Chinese chestnuts out there, isn't there a chance that the pure American ones will ultimately end up with some Chinese genes? From what I have read, they seem to hybridize fairly easily.

It's starting now-
http://www.acf.org/white_house.htm

It was my understanding they weren't 100% C, dentata but a considerably higher percentage than both Timburr and ECOS. I'm leaving my Timburr and ECOS standing.

Yes, hybridization is a concern of mine. I destroyed the five Chinese Chestnuts I planted a few years back.

I'm also going for American Elm to fill that niche vacated compliments of DED. I lost the battle trying to save the ones I had here so I decided to use Valley Forge as one of the trees I'm companion planting up next to existing Ash.

More information on Elms-
http://www.elmpost.org/

Here's where I've purchased some of my DED resistant Elms-
http://www.botanyshop.com/ValleyForge.htm

ACF gets all the press, but if y'all are concerned about Chinese geneplasm, why not bypass it altogether and join the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation, which is working to reintroduce the American chestnut by searching out and breeding only blight-resistant pure C.dentata?
http://ipm.ppws.vt.edu/griffin/accf.html
ACCF seedlings and seednuts are reasonably priced, and while they can't guarantee that all(or any, for that matter) will be fully blight resistant, not even all F1 ChineseXAmerican seedlings can guarantee 100% blight resistance.

From the reading that I have done all chestnuts hybridize with one another easily. I have been looking for American Chestnuts here in Vermont for several years. Attached is a photo of a chestnut that has been found in the northern part of the state. At this spot can be found three large trees with many seedlings growing around them.

Up until this year I have only planted pure American Chestnuts that I have gotten from The American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation. They send out nuts and seedlings from trees showing a high degree of resistance from disease. We are planning on clearing a few acres in our woods to replant with American Chestnuts with the hope of reintroducing them. I had hoped to plant out some of the seedlings from American Chestnut Foundation but I getting restless waiting.

Same tree as above with adoring human for scale.

Oh oh oh! I already sent them $20 when that site first appeared on the listserve and I don't think it was all that long ago. I can't remember whether I sent them money in '05 or '06 but regardless, they're worth another $20 to me. Great site Lucky!

Given we've lost over 99% of our American Chestnuts to the Blight, I'm actually a proponent of having a little bit of Asian DNA present for just the reasons you mentioned, "not even all F1 ChineseXAmerican seedlings can guarantee 100% blight resistance". I just want it coming from my Timburr or ECOS saplings already planted here. I know chestnuts hybridize freely amongst species and are the bunnies of the tree world but didn't want my recent introductions doing so with straight species C. mollissima. All of the C. mollissima were destroyed and my neighbor directly across the street from me destroyed hers too and burned them on our burn pile. I feel bad but not that bad.

The closest C.mollissima that I know of is about three miles from me, so hopefully my hybrids will be pollinating amongst themselves. I agree with Equil, even if I get a tree that is 85% American, that is better than having to settle for 100% Chinese.

I am not sure about this, but had thought about taking cuttings off a 100% American Chestnut that has survived the blight and flurished. My thought was that maybe planting a rooted cutting the disease resistance would be greater than maybe planting a seed.

There is always the chance in seeds of a genetic hic-cup and the possibility that a young seedling might not be as resistance to the disease.

Has anybody tried rooting cutting yets?

I tried it in the past and failed. I'll probably try again sooner or later and will probably fail again.

Chestnuts aren't all that easy to root from cuttings. You might want to consider grafting. I have not tried grafting a chestnut but I'm sure others have.

This paper addresses some of the issues in rooting all but the American Chestnut-
http://ctacf.org/print.cfm?id=DC78AF00-FE9E-20D3-C6ACF38A944CDDC8

Here's an interesting how to for grafting-
http://www.chestnutgrowers.com.au/growing_chestnuts/propogate/document_view

If you scroll way down at this site, you'll find comments about cuttings-
http://www.elmpost.org/chestnut.htm

I've got a couple of ACCF seedlings, planted in '96, that are still hanging in there, but they're not doing much.
There are two chestnut trees in the woods on the farm here - I suspect they're C.dentata, but I suppose they could be C.pumila - or hybrids. I'm rarely able to beat the squirrels to nuts - think I got 3 one year, and have one surviving seedling from that 'haul'. It's now close to 10 ft tall. Burs are small, and I *think* - it's been quite some time ago - that they had more than one small nut per bur, so I'm thinking they're not pure C.pumila. But, I can't swear that they don't have some C.mollisima in their background, as they're close to what was once an old house site; growing in the woods, they do have an upright, timber-type growth habit.
A couple of generous friends have sent me some chinkapin seednuts - including one selection called 'Giant Chink'(for Chinkapin, not an ethnic slur aimed at my friends of Chinese descent), which is purported to be 1/4 Chinese chestnut.

Equil,
Can't recall if I sent you a copy of the butternut article from the NNGA newsletter, but a number of the blight-resistant butternut cultivars that have been cultivated for decades as pure butternut have been determined, by DNA analysis, to actually be hybrids of J.cinerea with the Japanese walnut, J.ailantifolia,or its budsport mutation the hearnut, J.a. var cordiformis. So, for the butternut, the blight-resistant future is already here.

Nope, I didn't get the article from you but I'm already familiar with good old butternut canker (Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum). Is this the beast of which you speak or is there another out there that I missed. I miss a lot these days. I believe butternut canker first made its presence known in southwest Wisconsin. I'd still love to see the article you're sitting on regardless of which ickie it is so please send it.

Gosh, you really gotta love dna! Good to know a blight resistant future for something is out there. We really can't afford too many more species that are beneficial to wildlife going by the wayside.