American Chestnut Hybrids Doing Well In Delaware

[hatrack]

"At one time there were so many chestnut trees along the East Coast that they used to say a squirrel could go from Maine to Florida, jumping from chestnut to chestnut without ever touching the ground.

Until the early 20th century, chestnut hardwood was a mainstay in home and furniture construction. Chestnuts were staples on American dinner tables. That was until a deadly fungus was discovered on American chestnuts in the Bronx Zoo in New York in 1904. The blight spread north and south, killing millions of trees. By 1950, the tree was almost extinct.

The story of the American chestnut has been a sad one for the last century. But thanks to testing of hybrid trees, the American chestnut is making a slow comeback. Hybrids of American and Asian chestnut trees are growing tall in Delaware.

There's a 16-acre hybrid chestnut orchard in the Blackbird Forest near Townsend and several different hybrid trees have been planted in woods and parks around the state. "It's been trial by fire," says Brian Hall, senior program forester with the Delaware State Forestry Department. Tree experts and chestnut lovers are hoping to find the cultivar that will thrive in Delaware. Someday chestnuts may be common again, even in home landscapes.

So far, the 'Dunstan Hybrid' cultivar seems to be doing best here, says Nancy Petitt, who owns the Delmarvelous Chestnut orchard in Townsend with her husband, Gary. The Dunstan grows 20 to 40 feet tall and produces small chestnuts that are sweet and easy to peel."

EDIT

http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/life/homegarden/2004/09/23hybridchestnuts.html

[7 Lazy P]

1. That's encouraging....

But I'm not too optimistic. Most of the hybrids they have developed so far have eventually succumbed to the blight. It will be interesting to see if this one lasts. There's a couple of old chestnut stumps in the woods near my house. They continue to send up shoots, which last until they are about 6 - 8 feet tall, then the blight kills them back.

It is sad. Chestnut is wonderful wood - fairly light, easy to work, and rot resistant. I pulled down an old tobacco shed on my place that was framed and sided in chestnut and had it sawed for lumber and flooring. I sold it for enough to pay for a new steel Morton building....

[NNadir]

2. I have an American Chestnut in my front yard.

It has twice been infested with blight but is surviving and this year produced several nuts which I will plant for next year.

There is a claim that some American trees, including those that have survived in Michigan and Western PA, have blight resistance. Moreover it has not been established that hypovirulence will not take hold ultimately in the US, even acknowleging the prevalence of Cryphonnectria strains that seem immune to hypovirulence. Hypovirulence saved the European trees owing to the quick action of the French plant pathologist Jean Grente, who introduced the hypovirulent VLP Virus like particle infested strains into Italy when the blight appeared on the European trees.

I am optimistic that these three factors, intrinsic resistance, hypovirulence and the introduction of Asian genes into the native stock will allow for the re-establishment of the American tree or something very close to it.