As a child growing up in Pennsylvania I remember walking in the woods and seeing enormous tree stumps. As a small boy I’m sure they seemed even larger than they really were. I recall asking my father about these wonderous remnants of what must have been towering and majestic trees. He told me they were what remained of American Chestnut trees that had been killed by “the blight”.
Chestnut, in particular what we called “wormy Chestnut”, was the most coveted wood in Pennsylvania. Its warm color and resistance to decay made it ideal for all sorts of woodworking and was the structural framework and siding for the most durable barns. So what happened?
Through the first-half of the 20th century, the American Chestnut tree (Castanea dentata) was the dominant forest tree species in Pennsylvania and the East but it was virtually eliminated from the landscape by an Asiatic blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) carried on exotic plant materials imported by plant explorers in the late 1800s.
Huge American Chestnut Tree photo from www.chattoogariver.org
According to a post at Physorg.com,
A decades-long process of introducing blight resistance by cross-breeding Chinese chestnut trees with American chestnuts, and then back-crossing the hybrids with American chestnuts to select for desirable American chestnut form and traits, seems to be close to bearing fruit. “We have a six-generation breeding program — we think that will be adequate for both full American character and blight-resistance,” said Sara Fitzsimmons, Northern Appalachian regional science coordinator for the American Chestnut Foundation and a research support technologist in Penn State’s School of Forest Resources.
Mighty Giants: Photo courtesy of the Forest History Society
“The fifth generation trees are currently planted at the Penn State Arboretum and at our Meadowview facility in southwestern Virginia. We collected seed from those trees last year and we actually have sixth-generation plants growing in pots right now at Penn State.”
Those potted plants could be — indeed should be – blight-resistant, according to Fitzsimmons. But it will be years until researchers know for sure. “Does this process work? Honestly, we don’t know,” she said. “But we will be testing it in the next 10 years to be sure the blight resistance is there.”“It may take 100 or 150 years to see these trees restored to Eastern forests on any sort of large scale,” Fitzsimmons conceded. “But it might not be much more than 10 or 15 years until folks can go to local garden stores or nurseries and buy blight-resistant chestnut trees. That’s exciting.”
Even if the sixth-generation trees now being grown don’t produce satisfactory blight-resistant seed, Fitzsimmons is confident that blight-resistant American chestnut trees will be developed soon. “Even if this plant material doesn’t pan out, we have so much material coming through the pipeline that it will do the trick,” she said.
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