An American Tragedy

The blight changed the face of the Apps. as little else has...I've seen them stump up to 15 feet or so before they succomb.
As a tree of value, nothing else lost or going compares.

Actually, the face of most every eastern forest is slowly and continually changing, the Chestnut was simply quick in departing.
 
I didn't realize it was that extreme.
Can't replace those giants but maybe a plight resistant strain is not far away.
 
They actually have what they believe is a blight resistant tree right now. They have been planting it out on old strip mines and state parks etc.. It is not available to the general public right now.
 
I believe all chinese trees are blight-resistant, as that is where the disease originated.
So crossings have been ongoing for years...hope has cycled like a sine wave.
The sadness being, while a chestnut, it will never be an American Chestnut with the same particulars that made it a frontier staple.
Success, if it comes, will still yield only specimen trees in the big picture.
The forest has moved on.
 
The latest trees are 15/16 American Chestnut and possess most of the American traits. The early attempts focused on back crossing to the Chinese tree, this produced trees with Chinese type characteristics, for the past 30 years they have back crossed back to the American, keeping only the gene for blight resistance , resulting in a tree that is virtually an American Chestnut.

http://www.acf.org/pdfs/about/restoration.pdf
 
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OldDublin said:
I believe all chinese trees are blight-resistant, as that is where the disease originated.
So crossings have been ongoing for years...hope has cycled like a sine wave.
The sadness being, while a chestnut, it will never be an American Chestnut with the same particulars that made it a frontier staple.
Success, if it comes, will still yield only specimen trees in the big picture.
The forest has moved on.
Click to expand...

There are fulled blooded American Chestnuts outside of this country that have never been exposed to the blight. There was a whole forest of them in Wisconsin (or Minnesota) until dogooders found out and tracked the fungus into those woods.
 
I heard there was a Wisconsin Chestnut....even for a wind-borne blight, traveling west would be a stretch.

I reckon the takeaway for me is that there are no doubt problems in many areas of the country that go largely unknown or forgotten, other than for the folks that do the hard work to try and repair or reconstruct.
My cap is off to all those folks.
 
Phillip Rutter in South East MN has developed a plight resistant Chestnut and has thousands of nut producing Chestnuts trees on his property. Interesting, sells the nuts and has a good market.
Also sells seedlings and will mail them in tubes. Is sold out for the season.
 
FLDBRED said:
Interesting...any contact information? Thanks!
Click to expand...

I wanted to learn more about the American Chestnut. Happens Phillip Rutter is president and founder of the "American Chestnut Foundation" and is from Minnesota. American Chestnuts aren't native to MN.

Just google Phillip Rutter Chestnuts. You get pages of information. And you can order seed/nuts or seedlings on line.
 
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