Tree Talk: American Chestnut!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ย. 2024
- We found something amazing in the woods this spring: a wild, reproducing American chestnut!!! American chestnut, Castanea dentata, is functionally extinct in the wild due to an introduced fungus that wiped out the species in the early 20th century. It persists as stump sprouts that inevitably get re-infected and die after just a few years, making this find pretty extraordinary! The loss of American chestnut was devastating; the tree was once a dominant species in Appalachian forests and incredibly valuable for humans and wildlife alike.
Ryan was so excited to find American chestnut husks that he forgot to discuss look-alikes, which is always an important part of tree identification! Chinese chestnut, Castanea mollissima, has a wider leaf, fuzzy leaf undersides, and U-shaped leaf bases, while American chestnut has narrow leaves, smooth leaf undersides, and more V-shaped leaf bases. Allegheny chinquapin, Castanea pumilia, is a shrub/small tree native to the southeastern US and has noticeably smaller leaves and burs than American chestnut does. C. pumilia is susceptible to the blight but has not been wiped out to the same extent as C. dentata was. Chinese chestnut, on the other hand, is resilient to chestnut blight. Indeed, infected Chinese chestnut saplings that were introduced to America are suspected to be the source of the devastating fungus to our hemisphere.
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Recorded and edited by the not-so fast-growing Allyson Wells.
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I always figured, as long as there were trees still popping up in the wild, the more persistent ones would eventually overcome the blight and continue reproducing.
The Asian trees had to get their resistance somewhere along the line a millennia ago or so.....
Yes, the same thing or something similar happened to the hemlock. I guess it takes hundreds of years though. Maybe we can speed it up somehow?
If you want to I have a video on my channel of two mature American chestnut trees.
By 2100 chestnuts should be all over the eastern US living natively like before. There's already tons of backcrossing going on
the american chestnut suffered before the blight, black ink disease was killing them in the late 1800's it is strange that the extinction of the passenger pigeon coincides with the extinction of the chestnut in the wild
I just ordered a bundle of 10 American Chestnut bare-root seedlings from the American Chestnut Foundation earlier this week. 😊
Amen.
Well done you!
I live in Virginia, and in spring of this year I came across an American chestnut for the first time in my life. I only recognized it at all because the ground below it was littered with its strange seeds. Knowing that the species had been devastated by disease, at the time I was shocked to see it, but I am even more shocked now after hearing you say how rare this tree has become.
I’m from Foothills of the blue ridge mountains in NW North Carolina. I haven’t saw any American Chestnuts growing around here but then I’m not out in the woods nearly as much as used to be. I’m in the middle of tearing down an old farmhouse that was built around a cabin that we think was built between 1800-1850. The logs are American chestnut and there is sone lumber in the house that is chestnut. I’ll be taking it down and resurrecting it into a garage for the owners. I’m excited and proud to be a part of this. Also my 1st cousin is in possession of roughly 800 boards 1&1/4”x9” that our Great Grandpa had milled. I went into his old pack house one day and took a board home and planed it out to see what it was and wormy chestnut is what it is. So stole 9 more boards and made a set of bifold doors for mom. I confessed to him that spring and he had no idea what it was nor does he know how to make anything from it. Lol! Anyways I hope to aquire the boards sometime in the future. Thanks for the video and hopefully nature will find a way!
No dont take it down leave it alone lol.
Please get with TACF so the location can be marked and nuts collected if the land owner allows. They are so valuable for restoration efforts.
If not TACF directly, there’s an app called TreeSnap where you can document your findings yourself and see where other “citizens scientists” have found others. Not just American chestnut either, all sorts of threatened species like elm, ash, etc. It’s a great resource.
My family recently bought a property in West Virginia and there are several decent sized 30+ ft tall American Chestnut trees on the property along with a lot of other one's varying in size. They seem to be thriving in that area.
I enjoyed that! I’m in Southern Ontario so we share many tree species.
Tell your USDA or WVU Tree people.
@@thomassherer5962 The American Chestnut Foundation too! They gather pollen from survivors all over the country for their conservation breeding program.
@@geckoguy4141 Yes, I was thinking the ones I mentioned would know ph #s. Some States do not have active chapters.
I just learned yesterday that ACF has more seedlings avail, and 5 are on their way to me!!
That's where they thrived originally as well, in the lower Appalachia mountain areas
I'm in northeast georgia and today while walking down a path in my woods I came across a bunch of the spiny chestnut hulls. I then googled what leaves look like and then discovered a bunch of these trees on my property. The tree where the nuts fell is at least 2 feet in diameter and about 60 feet tall. I t does have trunk damage but is still producing nuts
Amazing! Plant as many of those nuts as you can!
I've encountered several chestnuts in Richmond VA this past year. Some are growing in Chimborazo Park (site of a civil war hospital for all you "heritage" peeps) and more of them in gullies. I first saw the blooms, thinking they were Locust. Then the fruit set.
From what i've been reading, if you find them in parks, the odds are they are Chinese/Asian ones planted by whoever takes care of the park, or was taking care of it when the planting decision was made, but I hope I'm wrong.
American chestnut needs a second tree to produce viable chestnuts. Otherwise, you will get sterile nuts inside the burs. That's what I found 50 years ago from three trees smaller than the ones you found. I took them in to my dendrology professor and he burst my bubble and pronounced them all sterile. The reason the American chestnut was so abundant and prolific in the eastern forest was the receding glacier of the ice age and the fact that most of the eastern forests were clearcut. It took about 2000 years for the chestnut to make its way northward. It needs light from above the canopy to reproduce and the fact that the glacier killed all the hardwoods but the chestnut sent up dormant sprouts from the roots meant it had little competition when it regenerated. Other hardwoods didn't have that advantage, for the most part. Persimmons will throw up dozens of shoots while alive. I'm not sure about after they die. Deer killed my second pollinator twice but I didn't wait to see if it would resprout.
Thank you, very informative!
Since I posted this some years ago, Professor William Powell, who was conducting the genetic splicing of wheat DNA research at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, passed away from Cancer (late 2023). A tremendous loss.
So glad I found your channel! I hail from Mifflin/Synder county so not far from you, PA born and raised and man this channel has given me all kinds of info on trees I have in my area that I wasnt sure of!
Wonderful, glad it's helpful!! Maybe we'll cross paths out there someday :)
I made a video of two mature American chestnut trees that we found here in PA.
There are chestnut trees growing in Michigan. The largest I have found so far was about 40in (dbh) They don't seem affected by the blight. I believe it's because they're outside of the native range
If you want to see two mature trees, I have a video on my channel of two mature American chestnut trees.
Hope you get lots of seeds and grow them!
There is a natural virus in Michigan that attacks the chestnut blight fungus, essentially weakening the fungus enough to where the trees can fight the blight infection and heal cankers.
They were common in Ontario and all the way to Nova Scotia, I'm sure it's in your native range.
But some stands were discontiguous enough from the rest of the species the blight didn't spread to them immediately. This might be another such stand, or one that had somehow been more resistant by happenstance.
Man you are so lucky to find that in the wild in person. I dream of finding a mature one in the wilderness.
I live in a major city which protects the few American Chestnuts hand planted a few decades ago from the blight, but they are still small in size. Only one has reached reproducing maturity but it is the sole chestnut around its neighborhood so the seeds are not viable. I’ve tried to stratify them without success.
Thanks for sharing this exciting video. I live in Tennessee ridge/valley country, and remember very large chestnut stumps with sprouts all around the edges. ACF and others are working hard to return the chestnut to the forests.
My front door is 4 ft wide, it was built from reclaimed chestnut that the guy who built the house had personally saved from a previous job he did like thirty years ago. He told me if i ever rplaced the door to let him know as he would want it back…the thing is a beast, solid hardwood, three inches thick..weighs around 1200 pounds…
Wow obviously you would want to keep that door forever. I know I would.
We are in Virginia. We have several pretty large (about 12” across the trunk, the one in our back yard is almost 24”) American chestnut trees on our farm in Virginia. My children and I collect almost golf ball sized nuts even year. No one believes us but we have the nuts to prove it. We live on a farm that still has a home on it that was built in 1770.
Most likely it’s a Chinese chestnut tree. American chestnuts themselves aren’t golf ball sized (they have the smallest nuts of any chestnut in the world) and surviving trees that are 24” diameter are very, very rare.
That was a good chestnut of information!
Great video, great find! Thank you !
Got a pretty decent size one here in Columbus Ohio.
Love your enthusiasm and you a good looking tree hugger lol i must say. Very cute smile and i love over bites.Keep doing what you are doing.The wold need super hero narure guys.
They are all over North Georgia, especially in Ellijay. In people's yards and on the sides of the road.
awesome find! Report it to the American Chestnut Foundation
I found an American chestnut in the wild but I didnt notice in nut casings. I'm hoping it produces this fall. I will plant the nuts
There’s a 100 year old American chestnut on Adair County Kentucky.
My neighbors have one I believe...if it is don't step on the seed pods with out some decent shoes. Those spikes are hard and brittle, so once it goes in it can break off inside of you.
I got a kick out of your enthusiasm when you found the second tree. A couple years ago I found my first stand of them alongside an old stone wall along a road. It was late June and they were flowering like crazy. I was instantly hooked on finding more. Later that summer I was in the woods and came across a 14” DBH tree loaded with burs, and a second tree about 8” DBH 50 feet away. I almost fell to the ground in amazement.
They’re out there waiting to be found. If I was a forest manager and came across a grove of sprouts, I’d do some release work and thin the canopy, so that they could grow rapidly, flower and reproduce. Help keep the species going until the trees “learn” how to fight the blight.
I have an American Chestnut tree. The yard was covered with spiny sharp casings. Hopefully I'll get my own crop this year seeing I recently just moved to Ohio last December. The bark is smooth. I'll be checking it for blight tomorrow. So nothing kills blight?
Yep, unfortunately the blight is unstoppable!
It’s back baby- the American Chestnut
A friend of mine has an American Chestnut in his yard (30141). The diameter of the base is atleast 3 feet and 30 to 40 feet tall. I assume the tree is 70+ years old. No blight or disease. The tree receives no special care. The nuts however are filled with worms.
Contact the nearest TACF chapter. They will want to see if it is really American Chestnut and if they could find out why it is resistant. That's an amazing find!
Maybe those worms are doing something to protect it..
Where?
@@bmbullman 😂😂😂😂they are eating it.
@@apache-yaquibrown4060 Hiram Georgia
Most people who claim they've found an American Chestnut tree are mistaken, Chinese Chestnut were widely planted and most are mistaken for American Chestnuts
I've found some chestnut trees that have reproduce in comberlin country pa they are in full sun once the shade come in they die
In Berks County Pennsylvania, on a 110+ acres, a farm for over 220+ years..has many of these trees throughout the farm, ..in one particular field, there are nothing but chestnut trees..they're full, perfect, mature, very large..the trees produce mass ammounts of chestnuts..the ground beneath would be blanketed with the spiked husks, and the trees still with plenty more to drop. The squirrels and deer would eat the nuts up leaving few to none for you.. There is also many Black Walnut trees, up to over 200 year old ones, towering well above 3 stories high, nuts the sizes of golf balls to baseballs.
How about posting a video of them? We would love to see it.
Most likely Chinese chestnuts
Just viewed your video, which is very good. I live in central West Virginia. There are, as of this summer, 38 American Chestnut trees on our farm. The largest one, which is showing signs of the blight, is 22” at stump and @ 30-35’ height. We are now propagating and planting chestnut seedlings. Always hoping that the chestnut will at some point develop a resistance to the blight.
I've seen them near new Berlin Pennsylvania. Just south of Lewisburg pa , home to Bucknell university. Just sapling size at the time. On what we call new Berlin mountain but believe the proper name is Shamokin mountain. That was maybe over 20 years ago.
Good job! Did you find any nuts in those burrs? Because Chestnuts need a partner tree to make nuts. Make sure the American Chestnut Foundation and the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation know about your fantastic find. If you find a tree like that, pack mud on the cankers and it will temporarily kill the fungus and give the tree one or two more years until somebody can get out there and collect some nuts or scions.
Very interesting about the gene editing!
We recently moved into an older home in North, MS and we have a Chestnut tree in the yard and it's full of chestnuts this year. No one knew what kind of tree it was, at least everyone I asked, and I couldn't identify it either. Finally one of the neighbors across the street told me that it's a chestnut. It's twice the size of the older one you found. I'd never seen one before and I'm assuming that this one was intentionally planted.
That’s awesome did there something the forestry can do to save it?
There's an orchard up in Maggie Valley. North Carolina where they are having some good results back-crossing American Chestnut. I saw some really healthy examples up there. Very high elevation.
Looks like the Japanese beetles are liking those leaves too.
Glad you made a point about it being 1/4 of the total in a limited range. A lot of Americans have been led to believe that it was that way throughout its range, which is not true.
I hope they get the resistant one going, because the traditional crossing method has proved to be a dead end. Chestnut genetics are more complicated than most, and it seems they will never get the American traits delinked to the lack of resistance to the blight.
We grow Cultivated varieties of Chinese Chestnuts on our small farm.
They are almost ready with resistant trees in Virginia. The next 5-10 years should be very exciting.
I have a massive chestnut tree at my old house I remember climbing the tree many times
My woods are full of them.
Where is u
So this was two years ago. Have you had the chance to go back recently and inspect the tree, or trees, for the blight? I wonder how long these trees will hold out.
I have been trying for years to get them to grow here in north central Indiana. Have tried grafted plants, but to no available.
I'll be attempting to sprout some bonafide American/Chinese hybrid nuts over this coming winter. Parent tree is an American that has dealt with the blight for over a hundred years, the cross pollinator is a Chinese , possibly Chinese/American cross that was planted near the parent tree about ten years ago as a cross pollinator. Trees are in South Jersey, sprouting will be done here in S.E. Indiana. I've had success sprouting chestnuts of unknown parentage and currently have six producing nuts. Wish me luck.......
@@nj1639 You should see the mature trees we came across. The videos on my channel.
i have a super old one in my front woods in maine it drops a ton of nuts every year
💯❤️🌄
I thought we kept graffing them back to the chinese chestnut until we had basically 99% american with that 1% chinese that kept the blight resistant gene . Were in Pa and I frequently find stump sprouters throughout the mountainous ares . Some dropping fruit like you have there.
Well. I think they are created by cross polination
I have chestnut trees in my yard, live in rural area outside of Raleigh, North Carolina and holding a chestnut in my hands as I'm typing this comment. It is rather large and a citrus kind of smell, quite pleasant. The spiny shell is annoying because it is a little difficult to walk in the back and I rake them together and put them in an area that no one walks. I have about 3/4 of an acre and behind my house is about 400 acres of woods, so maybe there are more chestnut trees.
dont walk barefoot anyway in soil, there are nasty worms that can burrow in your skin
@@blakespower , I would agree. Some people get these unusual foot diseases and can't figure it out why they get it.
More!
Why can't the Fungus(blight) be eliminated? I owned an old house that was loaded with Chestnut. It was beautiful. Great video!
Fungi are pretty hard to completely eliminate! Especially in nature, when they can move around from tree to tree and within a tree. They also live beneath the bark, so there are limited options for chemical control. The transgenic American chestnuts keep the blight at bay not by killing the fungal infection, but by slowing it down with chemical processes within the bark to the point that the blight is not lethal.
Thank you for the presentation. From listening to the presentation, am I to believe that the blight survives in Oak trees and does not affect the oak trees? It makes sense that it must survive somewhere otherwise the fungus would die off.
That's correct, the blight infects oaks but does not kill them!
Therefore the fungus will never go away
correct!@@peterfcoyle9127
There's live chestnuts in lots of different states. There's one in my county in KY, big one at that
Can we fight blight with a fungicide? Like with the few that are found and the blight not bad enough? I that overuse of fungicides can produce a resistance in blight, so it would have to be managed effectively.
There is an American chestnut tree in Delaware. It’s about 50 years old. I think you can contact Ashland Nature Center or the Delaware Nature Society to arrange to see it.
Just harvested a small quantity of seeds from this tree, picture attached.
It's only about 40 feet tall, so it's probably Chinese.
So I purchased a little American Chestnut tree from a company that is propagating them from nuts of the few remaining survivors. It is now about 8 feet tall and really doing well. I'm wondering if anyone knows - in the event that I would see signs of the blight, is there any topical solutions that you can kill the fungus with?
Unfortunately no, the blight is mostly internal and there isn't currently any effective treatment for it once it shows up.
@@forestsforthebay4784 OK - thanks Ryan......was hoping there might be an injection method of fungicide similar to the injection of insecticide capsules they make for Ash trees. I've had good success with those working on my Green Ash trees. I will just try to keep it from injury....and see how big it will get. My goal is to get it big enough to produce a Chestnut. It would be awesome to have a Chestnut producing tree....it would be the only one in town. :)
That’s pretty cool. I planted a horse chestnut tree 55 years ago in my backyard. It is now a majestic and beautiful tree.
@@gfriedman99 Awesome! As a kid we had a big one in our yard.....but it blew down in a storm. My son and I are trying to get one of each tree native to PA on our 3 1/2 acres. :) We're up to about 80 species......this year planted an Ohio Buckeye and Yellow Buckeye......somewhat similar trees.
Mud packing. You can scrape away the dead/dying tissue with a knife, pack mud around the canker, then wrap the trunk in that area with a plastic bag and duct tape. Leave it on for one growing season then remove. The natural bacteria in the soil will kill the blight fungus. You’ll have to keep doing it as new cankers appear though.
I have 150 acres in Northern W.V. Where can I get saplings to plant? Or can you recommend a hybrid that has the new genes? Thanks in advance.
Is there any way to inoculate these chestnuts against the mold? I don’t see why not.
Are chestnut trees susceptible to black walnut juglone? I have some hybrid chestnuts that I plants a few years ago.
Wow would love to establish these in Central Virginia Chesapeake bay watershed.
You should have some pictures of what you're talking about.
thanks for showing the fungus my chestnut tree is still healthy I suppose I dont see any of that orange fungus at least not at ground level its 16 years old and produced one nut this year I am hoping to grow it, but its the only american chestnut around so I dont know if the nut is infertile, since I hear you need 2 trees to mate?I found other nuts but they were all shriveled up this looked like a real chestnut nut
If you buy a Chestnut tree from a grower will they live??
Has any treatment been found to help resist the blight? Maybe some minerals help them resist?
sadly if Big Pharma isnt involved nothing happens
their leaves are long and nanrrow and also they are hooked on the end, other chestnuts dont do that
Give the tree something to stop the fungus
I am currently raising 4 hybrid American chestnut trees.
American Chestnut
Ash
Eastern Hemlock
Beech
Elm
....all headed to extinction, very sad.
I have two huge chestnut trees on my property. I think they are the original American chestnut trees but I’m not sure
There are plenty of areas still covered in chestnut trees, they are not extinct. They grow and then the blight kills them back.
Probably the trees will evolve with resistance on their own. It will just take longer than if people intervene.
Y not do a DIRT collar on the gridle ? Help the TREE have a fighting chance
Did you contact the American Chestnut organization about your sighting?
Please, can I purchase some of those chestnuts ? I would like to try to reproduce them here in Quebec !
Arbo quebecium has some seeds and sometimes seedlings. Bonne chance.
Is there a treatment against the fungus?
Unfortunately there isn't a treatment! The only safe chestnuts are ones that have some degree of inherent resistance to the fungus. Hence the efforts to breed and genetically modify chestnuts to resist the blight!
The chinese chestnut (where the blight came from) is resistant.
I have pictures of a Giant American chestnut if you would like to see.
They’re out there waiting to be found... I’ve found hundreds of smaller ones about 10-25 feet tall but just today I came across one on an old logging trail that was about 14” DBH. I couldn’t even see how high up the crown went.
@@ericwanderweg8525 An old logging trail? How cool that would be to hike.
I have a chestnut tree on my property
I need help..im frpm the uk i have 2 x 3 year old american sweetchess nits growing but i found out they die..i now have 8 x new Itakian sweet chessnuts marone ...i dont no wat to do...dig these usa up and sell on ebay or keep them ?
Dp you thi k its wise to grow american with blight issues to be planted next to Italian marone ?
I'm not very familiar with European chestnuts, but I believe the blight impacts them too. It is likely that the disease wasn't already within the American chestnuts you planted, but that it was in your local ecosystem (the fungus also lives in oaks and possibly others but does not kill them) and rapidly infected the American chestnuts. Unfortunately, any chestnut species that isn't resistant to the blight will contract it.
European chestnut also known as horse chestnut in the US is blight resistant however the nuts are not edible.
European chestnuts are edible. Horse chestnuts are not. They are not the same tree.
@@ludwigvonrothbard1207 Chestnuts is chestnuts
@@gfriedman99horse chestnut is not European chestnut. Different family altogether. Sweet chestnut is European chestnut.
If it reproduced there must be another one nearby because chestnuts are self-sterile.
Touch the diseased one and the healthy does not help.
The healthy one had blight too. And even if it didn’t, eventually it’s going to get it, regardless if someone touches one tree and then another. It’s airborne, carried by bugs, birds, wind, rain, etc. In other words, it’s everywhere.
Adam Harrington is a great presenter. Interesting that Pennsylvania would give us another good forest ecologist.
Maybe if you're going to speak so many words per minute, cut it to a shorter or more organized video. You lose the attention of who you're trying to reach.
Your quick rambling voice and disorganization led me to type a comment rather than try to sift and focus your message.
So you found a chestnut fruit? This is exciting! it's a badass looking husk too ! and I hope this tree produces many offspring. May we roast chestnuts on open fires some day in future generations
Long live chestnuts
Get somebody that isn't warped out on coffee or redbull to narrate please!!
He’s obviously excited about finding a tree that’s scientifically classified as “functionally extinct” in the wild. It has nothing to do with being over caffeinated.
Have two on my property in West Virginia. Never find a nut deer get them first.
Will neem oil not kill that fungus?
The blight lives inside the bark of trees, so you can't reach the fungus without killing the chestnut. Some external fungicides are partially effective, but only partially. Plus, chestnut and another host of the fungus, oaks (which are not harmed by the blight) are far too abundant over half of the continent to be able to locate and kill every fungal infection, even in a small area.