American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation

2011 Newsletter

  Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:

  GROWERS' REPORTS:

                    So far we have six growers reporting 108 all-American chestnuts growing. Last fall and winter, I planted 282 chestnuts; in spite of very good germination only 173 remain for me to water through the drought. We shall never again plant such a large number in one year. We had a chance to open up three new forest plots, and we went for it. Three or four dozen, on which the autopsy has not yet been done, died from either drought or voles and many more to other above- and below-ground varmints. Altogether, 777 of my chestnuts planted since 1985 survive.

  GRAFTING:

                   Since many states have recently enacted quarantine or other restrictive laws against imports of chestnuts from those states in which gall wasp has been identified, we can no longer send scions to cooperating grafters.  You can still continue improving your chestnut groves by collecting scions from the best-looking among your chestnuts with swollen blight cankers and grafting them on the new shoots from chestnuts killed by the blight. This is what we have been doing all along. This spring I made 70 grafts of which 14 are growing.  Following heavy losses to ambrosia beetle this spring, altogether 53 of my grafts since 1990 survive.

  HOTINE PLOT VIRTUAL TOUR:

                 We named it for my parents; Hotine is my family name. Located in the National Forest about 300 yards downhill from our back yard, the half acre was cleared by a Forest Service crew in the winter of 2002-03, after Ed Leonard, USDAFS silviculturist, obtained special permission for the research plot.

Site selection was deliberate: it is east facing (for morning sun exposure), on a cove-slope, two-thirds of the way down the mountain (to avoid frost pockets), where there used to be a field in which tulip poplars grew 100 feet tall in 30 years, promising great growth potential. Gary wanted the soil disturbed as little as possible, so the stumps were left in place and killed by applying a high nitrogen fertilizer. In the upper half of this clearing we laid out 10 rows, about eight feet apart because the slope is so steep, perhaps 50 degrees, and drove stakes to mark planting places, from six to 10 per row, the spacing dictated by the stumps. Laying branches across the slope, leveling places for the cages, removing roots and rocks to make the planting holes and making the protection cages completed the heavy work, well before planting time.

We accepted plenty of volunteer help from our children and grandchildren and especially from Douglas Buege, who carried most of the wire (enough rolls of 5 x 50 foot weldwire to make 94 cages) down to the site that summer, when he was doing the research for his book about American chestnuts,  If a Tree Falls. He expressed concern that the steep site could be prone to erosion, but this has not been a problem. The grasses and clover we planted, along with volunteer wildflowers and berries, rapidly covered the bare soil.

At the time when we made the application for a clearing, we proposed planting the next generation of the Miles x Ruth family there. However, that year Gary had discouraging results when rating the cankers among what were then the best representatives in that line. This is one of the big challenges in resistance breeding: from one year to the next, over the winter, blight cankers may completely change their appearance, altering the resistance rating from good to bad or sometimes, vise versa. This is why Gary rates cankers annually and why we cull individuals whole blight resistance does not hold up for at least 10 years. Thus Gary decided that we should start a new family here, using the mother tree with highest rated blight resistance and longest blight control.

We had observed, among all our chestnuts, this one was the last to go into dormancy, and we considered this extra week or two in growth might bestow an advantage in disease resistance. Thinking along these lines, we decided to use as father tree, the first chestnut to emerge from dormancy, which is a week to 10 days ahead of all the others, and this way, perhaps produce some progeny that combined the first in and last out feature to further extend the growing season. This was my idea, which may yet turn out to be bogus, but since I was doing the pollination in 2003, I decided to try it.

So far, the Hotine plot has been mostly a place for good luck. Starting with ready agreement from the community for the cut and major help from the USDAFS, next thing we received the grant from the National Wild Turkey Federation which paid for site preparation, protection cages and maintenance for the first three years.

The only bad luck was with the first controlled pollination. If you put up 50 bags, enclosing 150 flowers, return three times to paint pollen on each flower at intervals over a 10 day period, you may harvest a number of chestnuts anywhere between zero and 450. The pollen may be immature or too old, and the flowers generally are not all receptive on the same day.  My 2003 pollination was a flop:  it produced just seven viable chestnuts. I planted them in the top two rows, along with some volunteer seedlings which I planned to use for grafting stocks.

The following year I planted 35 more of this intercross.   In 2005, deciding it was a difficult cross to make and maybe we had enough of  these, we began to plant nuts from the same mother tree, using different father trees; next we used different mother trees with the original mother as the father.  Finally in 2007, we planted an extra column of open-pollinated chestnuts in the Miles X Ruth line, once again back in favor. This way we may be able to compare their blight resistance to the newer breeding lines on this site.

Now we have 94 seedlings and four grafts growing. The grafts are of parent trees and also, one new first generation selection. In general, the first two or three seedlings in each row grow very slowly or not at all, while the rest make very good to exceptional growth. The cause was a planting mistake: we planted too close to several 100-foot tall poplars on the south side which shade the nearby seedlings too soon in the day while the poplar root systems keep growing back into the chestnut planting holes.  Five of these tiny seedlings finally died.  The survivors in the first two rows are four, each at one foot tall; four, at two feet tall, and one at seven feet; however, the last is in an upper row not crowded by the big poplars. Normal chestnuts of the same age growing in the rest of the rows are 12 to 14 feet tall.

You may remember our discovery last year at the Airport plot where two chestnuts had no gall wasp damage, while all the others had a major infestation. Those two possibly gall wasp resistant chestnuts were parents of the 42 nuts we planted in 2003 and 2004.  Several of them are over 20 feet tall and many more are over ten feet, so we anticipated an early nut crop this summer. As it turns out, we might get a few, but not enough to share: only one chestnut made any flowers so I tied bunches of catkins on the tips of branches to entice bees to pollinate these flowers.

  GALL WASPS:

                    We suffered a major gall wasp infestation in our yard chestnuts this May, dealt with by cutting out two grafts and 10 seedlings, all well over ten feet tall, thus it was the only way to get rid of the problem. We also cut the top and many upper branches out of the Pie chestnut in front of our dining room window, so it is not as beautiful as it used to be. The grafts are finished, but the seedlings can start again clean, and some of them have new sprouts already six feet tall.  We found and destroyed a small number of galls at the Airport plot, not nearly as many as last year. A sprout from one Miles and one Ruth (cut down last year at the Airport) are growing tall, and three of the others we have grafted with newer selections.  We also found a discouraging number of galls in the Martin American Chestnut Planting, picked them out by hand, stuffed into plastic bags to the dump.  I read in the Nutshell (NNGA 101st annual report) that the natural predators of gall wasp develop along with them inside the galls, but choose not to take the chance that these predators may have reached our area.

  AMBROSIA BEETLE:

                This pest caused extensive damage and some big losses. Arthur Frisbee, from North Carolina warned years ago that this beetle, said to attack only injured trees, thinks grafts are injured trees. In a forest plot out in Giles County, we had six grafts killed by ambrosia beetle. When you cut a graft at the base, you are usually cutting into the stock, but there is a small chance that a piece of the graft, covered with soil, may send up a new sprout; this does not usually happen.

In addition, we had infestations on ten healthy seedlings at Mountain Lake and in the Hotine plot as well as a few grafts at the Airport and Mountain Lake. We cut all seedlings and heavily infested grafts in one-foot segments, to be able to examine them for the telltale pinholes, and put all infested wood in triple plastic bags, to the dump.  Again, we chose the strongest  new shoots and cut out the others. Some of these new shoots are also six feet tall.

On two very large grafts, we found only a few pinholes near the base and tried to save them with applications of permethrin, once a week or after each rain. We saved one.

In every plot where this pest made an appearance this year, we shall have to spray all grafts and small seedlings from the base to five feet up, beginning in April 2012 to prevent further losses of grafts and time.

  HYPOVIRULENCE

                Over the years, we have received many requests to share the hypovirulent strains of the blight fungus with which we inoculate the first cankers on chestnuts in our breeding program that demonstrate blight resistance.  We are not permitted to share them because they are under a special USDA license for use in research under Gary's direct supervision.

  OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS:

Thanks again to John Buschmann for supporting ACCF research and plot maintenance in the Lesesne.

Thanks to Matthew, Hannah, Grace & Luke Griffin for folding, applying stamps & labels, stuffing & sealing envelopes to get out last summer's newsletter.

Many thanks for harvest help from Lise & Harry Cooper, Carol Croy, Rick Gendreau, and Vicky & Eli Lewis. If you wish to volunteer for the 2011 harvest, please e-mail me at allaccf@gmail.com and suggest a week day after September 15, when you may be able to help.

More thanks to Lise & Harry Cooper, for helping with replanting at Turkey Run. Special thanks to Karl Cooper for cutting many trees at Turkey Run to put more sun on a few small seedlings and make room for 12 more planting places.

  In future newsletters, the research plots on our virtual tour will be quite different: the rest are not laid out on a grid, like an orchard enclosed within the forest, but are planted or grafted at random in groves as the forest grows.  We now have many more chestnut research plots than there are days in the week. So we must limit ourselves to maintenance, improvement, and perhaps, expansion in a few plots.

But that was not our dream. We have imagined all-American chestnuts growing in each new forest opening on ideal sites in the whole eastern forest formerly occupied by American chestnut.  We will need lots of help to accomplish this, and we believe seasoned chestnut growers will be most able to create successful forest projects.

Some of you are raising a few or several yard chestnuts, some are making large orchards and others are making forest groves. If you are in the first category above and have run out of yard space, we urge you to consider branching out and putting your experience growing chestnuts to use in a forest setting on public lands. A few of our cooperators are already doing this; we need many more to join them. State and Federal foresters make very good cooperators; they welcome volunteer forest improvement projects and help with site selection.

When you work near a forest service road, the same pickups, motor cycles and SUVs, carry woodcutters, hikers, campers or hunters past you. One will stop to ask what you are planting. �American chestnuts  you say, and often you have a new friend. After a few years on the job, most of the passersby, as well as nearby cabin dwellers wave and many express thanks for your work.� It is the best job in the world.

We look forward to reading your reports and thank you for your work.

Respectfully submitted,

              Lucille Griffin, Executive Director

 

Other ACCF Directors

Gary Griffin, President, Professor Emeritus Plant Pathology, Virginia Tech

Ed Greenwell, Vice President & Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, VP Operations Meriwether Lewis Electric Cooperative, McEwen, TN

John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Professor Emeritus Chemistry, Concord College, WV

William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV

Dave McCurdy, Director & Nursery Superintendent Emeritus, Raleigh, NC

  Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts

American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation

2010 Newsletter

Forest Service Road 708, Newport, Virginia 24128

Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:

Without a computer for six weeks, I may have lost many e-mails. Please resubmit your unanswered comments and questions with your Annual Report and chestnut request.

GRAFTING:

This year I sent no scion wood to cooperators. I was just too busy. The record snowfall closed forest roads and off-road paths, none of which are plowed, thus most research plots could not be reached until March 11. This made it impossible to do planting and grafting preparations a little at a time, as usual, through the months of January and February. All that work was squeezed into two weeks. Of 50 grafts I made, 12 are growing, improving five different plots.

AIRPORT VIRTUAL TOUR:

Our most senior cooperators and grafters are familiar with this plot which we reclaimed in 2000, from a 1976 ACCF-Virginia Tech planting of Dietz chestnuts, like those in the original Lesesne plantation. But here we had only 15 rows of 10 each, on 10-foot centers, and Garys tests, found no blight resistant chestnuts. So the plot was abandoned and soon overgrown in poison ivy, bittersweet, autumn olive, multiflora rose, Virginia creeper and blackberries.

In 1999 the Virginia Tech Grounds crew cut the first five rows near ground level, to make a wonderfully compact and level grafting plot, easily accessible off-road (except only in winter 2010, when two-foot drifts covered the trail through the hay fields.) Horticulture students helped us clear the vines and briars and spread wood chips in the other ten rows. The idea was to improve the first five rows by grafting blight resistant chestnuts, while leaving the other 10 rows to grow wild, as they do in forest clearings and edges, to demonstrate the difference, with blight resistant American chestnuts growing beside American chestnuts that have no blight resistance.

Many trees had already been lost in the no-resistance rows, and those remaining were multi-stemmed, with many dead trunks of increasingly larger sizes. Continuous cycles of blight and death produces hypovirulence in the blight fungus. The combination of hypovirulence with the ever-increasing root systems permitted these chestnuts to make trunks up to eight inches in diameter before the blight killed them. They gave large annual nut crops which we sent out to nut grafters or as gifts to be eaten, for as long as we were able to gather this harvest. Not many years passed before all the invasive species had returned and once again we abandoned these ten rows. It was too much work, at the bottom of a very long list. We let the animals have those chestnuts.

Meanwhile, the five managed rows became a great asset to our breeding program. Miles and Ruth, growing in the steeply sloping Martin American Chestnut Planting up on Salt Pond Mountain, first selections from our first generation of breeding, were making flowers high in the crown, out of reach. We grafted their scions alternately, in the first two rows, and about 10 grew very rapidly in the rich soil, in full sun. By 2002, using low branches we made second-generation intercrosses (planted in the Lesesne) and we have been sending their open-pollinated chestnuts all these years to our cooperators.

Each spring I used to hold grafting clinics here by appointment. We stopped this practice because each clinic took up a morning in prime grafting time and often it happened to fall on the finest day for grafting: no wind, high humidity, temperature between 55 and 60 F, overcast skies. On such a day, I would imagine that I could have made seven grafts, all of which might have succeeded. I could not dismiss that dream. (If you are determined to learn how to graft, you can do it by reading the instructions on our Web site and keeping scrupulous notes of your work, so that you are able to learn from most of your mistakes, as John Elkins, Ed Greenwell and I have done.)

You may better understand how I have become a stingy grafting cooperator, if you consider that each graft requires a minimum of one-half hour to make and has at best a 20% chance of success. (These figures are for whip-grafting in the field; I have come to consider other grafts to be a waste of my time.) Also, new grafts require weekly inspection, to be sure that the union is always covered with soil.� Thus, in ten years of grafting, we do not have a single uninterrupted row of five grafts in this plot (the elusive Bingo!). At the end of last summer, we had 23 grafts.  Two grafts succeeded this spring, so now we have 16: blight below the exposed union killed one, and Ambrosia beetle had killed another before I noticed its telltale pinholes. Then we paid a tree service to cut away the remaining Miles and Ruth grafts (several were a foot in diameter) in late April, after I had discovered the plot was infested with gall wasp.

This is our first experience with gall wasp. We must thank Giorgio Maresi who had recently sent excellent pictures of the deformed leaves, curled up around pinkish galls. While checking my grafts, one of these leaves literally hit me in the eye. Instead of the planned hour, I spent half the day cutting infested leaves and stuffing them into plastic bags; we returned daily to the same work for two weeks. Galls in the tops of Miles and Ruth were out of reach, and since we are now selecting from the next generation in this breeding line, we decided to destroy those big grafts. (Miles and Ruth survive in two other plots.) However, this was just the tip of the infestation: it appears to have entered via the chestnuts abandoned in the adjacent overgrown ten rows. We cut paths to these chestnuts so the contractor could cut all of them. There were poison ivy and bittersweet vines up to three inches in diameter. We poisoned the chestnuts and vines.

The Airport plot is subject to extremely high gusts of wind. We must keep all grafts here staked for at least two years, while elsewhere, we usually remove the support stakes at the beginning of the second growing season. One week after the Miles and Ruth grafts had been removed, high winds flattened to the ground a 15-foot graft and left two larger, newly exposed grafts permanently listing to the east. The union on the downed graft was intact, so it lived several weeks before dying. What appeared at first to be the destruction of ten years work has yielded significant benefits. From now on the Airport plot is free from inferior pollen. The surviving grafts represent at least nine original sources of  blight resistance, and possibly 10, because one graft is of a volunteer which may bring an additional source of blight resistance  into the mix.  Eleven of the grafts are original sources; three, including the volunteer, are first-generation intercrosses; and two are second-generation intercrosses with some of their parent trees present in duplicate in this plot. All were selected for blight resistance. Thus, future Airport harvests should produce a higher percentage of chestnuts inheriting blight resistance.

That is the smaller advance. The biggest deal we gleaned from careful observation. On one individual, represented by two grafts, a large 10-year old and a three-year old, both surrounded by chestnuts infested with the gall wasp, we were unable to find any galls. On another unrelated chestnut, also represented by two grafts, we found just a few galls. This suggests, the first may be highly resistant to gall wasp, and the second, may also be resistant to this pest. It just so happens that we made the first intercross between these two individuals in 2002, and they may begin bearing nuts within a year or two. We shall send as many of these nuts as possible to southern growers, where gall wasp is most troublesome.

GALL WASPS

lay their eggs in the buds on the new growth of that year, the very same twigs from which we collect scion wood. (Since I collect most of our scion wood at the Airport, it is after all quite lucky that I sent none to cooperators this past winter.) The wasps lay eggs over a three week period. Spraying is not effective because it cannot penetrate the galls, but must hit the flying insects, which may hatch out over a period of a month or more. For the time being, our April infestation appears to be under control, but we must continue to be vigilant each spring, because Chinese chestnuts grow within a half-mile of the Airport.

CHESTNUT FLOWERING

usually begins when seedlings are seven to 10 years old; the lower number applies in very rich sites in full sun. The first year, often the chestnut makes only male catkins; the second year, it usually makes some female flowers also; and thereafter, if it has a pollinator, the tree may flower in abundance and produce regular nut crops. The female flowers usually show up about ten days after the catkins.

The pollinator is sometimes a problem, because American chestnuts bloom at various times. For instance, our earliest chestnut blooms a week before Chinese chestnuts, so that most years it can produce nuts only by controlled pollination, using pollen that was stored in the freezer from the previous year. This year we pollinated that chestnut on June 5. At the other end of the spectrum, our latest bloomer usually has no receptive female flowers till the second week in July, when all other male pollen has dropped; we pollinated it on July 10, using pollen collected on another chestnut in mid-June. Most American chestnuts bloom during the weeks in between these two extremes.

Blooming time may be altered by a freeze or heavy frost in late April or May. Chestnuts that have bloomed only once or twice, may make no flowers in such a year. While those regularly bearing chestnuts which usually bloom early or in the middle range of flowering time, may bloom as much as two weeks later than usual. In one forest plot, this Mays freeze hit a graft of our earliest chestnut, causing its catkins to be available for the first time when a much later chestnut graft came into bloom.

Variety in blooming time is expressed among the progeny of each chestnut, each generation. This characteristic favors survival by assisting regeneration. Very heavy rains falling when female flowers are receptive can prevent pollination, but because of the various flowering schedules, this is not likely to affect all the chestnuts in a stand.

GROWERS REPORTS:

As of October 13, 116 cooperators have reported 2,397 surviving all-American chestnuts. We shall add to these numbers your as reports come in. We have 636 chestnuts I planted in the Virginia research plots. A late freeze hit most of the newly emerging seedlings in two plots; all but a few of them recovered and put out new shoots. However, the setback in root development left them highly vulnerable to June drought, which killed half of this years seedlings in the Lesesne before we were able to water. Drought conditions also lead to more vole attacks, thus three more three-foot tall chestnuts are dead, their tap roots eaten. We water only the chestnuts which are not yet two feet tall. The water often must be carried uphill for a distance of 150 yards, reminding us that it is never a bad idea to limit annual planting to 10 chestnuts. On the bright side, abundant spring rains once again resulted in record growth on the larger trees in most plots. By early July, many had new growth exceeding six feet, and in those plots where the freeze did not hit, some new seedlings were already two feet tall.

OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS:
Thanks again to John Buschmann for supporting ACCF research and plot maintenance in the Lesesne.

Many thanks for harvest help from Lise & Harry Cooper, Carol Croy, Brian Hartnett, Vicky & Eli Lewis, Joe Norberg, and Albert Ward.  If you wish to volunteer for the 2010 harvest, please e-mail me at allaccf@gmail.com and suggest a week day after September 15, when you may be able to help.

More thanks to Lise, Jenny, Lizzie & Harry Cooper, Vicky & Eli Lewis for helping install bat houses in those forest research plots which are within a half-mile of a water source. Bats eat thousands of insects per day. This is an experiment to see if they may help control ambrosia beetle, gypsy moth and/or gall wasp.

Yet more thanks, to Jenny & Lizzie Cooper at UNC Asheville & Raleigh, for giving up two days of their spring break to make protection cages and plant chestnuts.

We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for reporting.

Respectfully submitted,

Lucille Griffin, Executive Director

Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor Emeritus Plant Pathology, Virginia Tech

Ed Greenwell, Vice President & Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, McEwen, TN

John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Professor Emeritus Chemistry, Concord College, WV

William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV

Dave McCurdy, Director & Nursery Superintendent Emeritus, Raleigh, NC

Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts

 

American Chestnut Cooperators’ 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 year’s grafts.

This year’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 Piedmont and elsewhere in the South where the soil is not well drained, a root rot may be the problem.   Watering does not improve the appearance of root rot victims.  The seedling dies all at once.  For complete information, look up Phytophthora in past newsletters, archived in descending order, below.

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 year’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 September 8, we have received reports from 83 growers of 1,976 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 1970’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

 

American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation
                2006 Newsletter
     Send your report via accf-online.org/greport.htm  or to
           2667 Forest Service Road 708
             Newport, Virginia  24128

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.

 

American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation
                2004 Newsletter

Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts