Good news about the return of the chestnut

Here’s a note from Doug Gillis of Charlotte, vice president of the Carolinas Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, with encouraging wrods about the hoped-for return of the chestnut. See also the foundation’s website:
Thank you for your article in the August 26, 2007, Charlotte Observer about the Hemlock and the wooly adelgid infestation that is devastating the tree. Thank you also for your comments about the American chestnut and the devastation it has suffered due to the introduced chestnut blight, which resulted in the removal of billons of trees from the environment. There is great hope that the strains of blight resistant, hybrid American chestnut trees being developed by the American Chestnut Foundation and its State Chapters will result in the chestnut returning as a dominant, self sustaining tree in the eastern forests.

The American chestnut tree, though thought by some people to be extinct, continues to sprout from the stumps and root systems of parent trees that are long gone. Relatively large, flowering, native American chestnut trees, which have sprouted from the root collars or root systems of blighted trees, have reached reproductive size and will produce viable nuts if pollen from another chestnut tree is present. A flowering 10-inch diameter American chestnut tree at Pilot Mountain State Park and an 8-inch diameter flowering tree at Crowders Mountain State Park are two examples of such trees. Larger survivor trees exist, and examples are those growing on Wayah Bald west of Franklin, NC. One survivor tree is 16 inches in diameter.

When American chestnut trees are of a size that they flower and they are accessible, they can be back cross-pollinated to hybrid chestnuts by State Chapters and its growers, using pollen from the American Chestnut Foundation’s Research Farms. Some flowering American chestnut trees are used by the Foundation as sources of pollen to cross with hybrid chestnut trees growing at its Research Farms. The hand pollinating done by the American Chestnut Foundation and its State Chapters (stretching from Vermont and New Hampshire to Alabama) helps create genetically diverse, blight resistant trees. Each generation is tested for resistance to the chestnut blight and for strong American chestnut characteristics, with the best trees selected for further crossing. The end product are trees that are 94% American chestnut and 6% Chinese chestnut, which display strong American chestnut characteristics and which demonstrate resistance to the chestnut blight. These trees are intercrossed to reinforce the desired characteristics and to develop trees for use in seed orchards.

Nuts developed in seed orchards are sprouted, and seedlings tested for how well they grow in the forest. Such testing is being conducted at the Bent Creek Experimental Forest adjacent to the North Carolina Arboretum.

You should find the above information about the efforts of the American Chestnut Foundation to restore the American chestnut tree heartening. The story of the American chestnut tree, its demise and its potential recovery (with the help of science and many dedicated people) captures the imagination of most who hear that restoration of the “King of the Forest” is possible.

The Carolinas Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation would welcome an article in the Charlotte Observer about this fascinating story to further the interest of people in restoring a tree that needs the help of mankind, stewards of the environment, to recover.