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 is 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 11/4/06, 137 growers report 9,766 ACCF chestnuts.  The numbers above will be updated, as your reports 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 chinquipin 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.