Connecticut Chapter, The American Chestnut Foundation - About Chestnut

Plant Science Day at CAES

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:22:00 -0700

Always a great day at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station Lockwood Farm, the CAES Plant Science Day is Wednesday August 4th from 10 am to 4pm.

There are ninety field plots to review, technical demonstrations, insect identificationn, barn displays, and more. There are several exciting lectures scheduled to begin at 10:15 am including lectures by Kirby C. Stafford III entitled Be Our Guest: The History of Plant Science Day, also by Dr. Sandra L. Anagnostakis on Chestnut Blight: A Trip Through Time .. and then also Dr. Jeffrey S. Ward with Our Dynamic Connecticut Forest: 80 Years of Observation. The official CAES Flyer can be downloaded from here with a full description of activities and directions on getting to Lockwood Farm. Hope to see you there!

2010 CT Annual Meeting

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:18:00 -0700

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Saturday March 6th we'll be hosting the annual meeting of the CT Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. We have interesting presenters and a fantastic venue - and hope you'll mark you calendar and join us. Should you decide to join, you MUST RSVP by calling Kendra Gurney at 802.951.6771 x1350 or sending her an e-mail at kendra@acf.org. We have been approved to offer qualified attendees two CEU hours of credit in the following licensing categories: Forest Pest Management (category 2), Arborist (category 3D) and Demonstration and Research (category 10). Submission forms and sign-up will be available at the meeting. For further information please contact kendra@acf.org. Simply looking for directions? See the directions on the Trinity web-site. See the brochure with campus map [142kb] in easily printable format with venue annotations for directions on how to get to each venue.

Topic: Accelerating the Restoration of American Chestnut Through Genomics

Dr. Tom Kubisiak spends a lot of his time in a world that's invisible to most of us -- the double-stranded, DNA world of genes and chromosomes. A geneticist based at the SRS Southern Institute of Forest Genetics in Saucier, MS, Kubisiak is a master at using small snippets of DNA called genetic markers to tease out variations among individuals -- whether they're trees or the pathogens that infect them. He has worked with The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) on just about every aspect of their restoration program, from charting the genetic diversity of the American chestnut trees still living to helping map the genome of the chestnut blight fungus. Most of his research for TACF has had immediate practical application -- a rarity in the world of genetic research.

Dr. Kubisiak is a member of the Fagaceae Genome Project (Funded by the National Science Foundation) and a member of the "Forest Health Initiative" (funded by The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, U.S. Forest Service, and Duke Energy), and has been an active long-term participant in the USDA CREES Regional Research Project NE-1033 "Biological Improvement of Chestnut Through Technologies that Address Management of the Species, its Pathogens, and Pests." Tom earned a Ph.D. in Forestry (Forest Genetics) at Louisiana State University in 1994. For more information about our speaker, visit this article about Dr. Kubisiak at the Southern Research Station

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Dr. Tom Kusisiak
Photo: John Butnor, USFS

The presentations will be followed by operational meetings attended by those of you with an interest or business in attending. You are welcome to attend just those sections of the meeting that interest you as outlined in the agenda below.

Agenda
9:30am Opening Reception
10:00am Introduction and speakers
12:00pm CT-TACF Annual Meeting followed by Lunch
1:30pm Visit to Trinity's Watkinson Library Special Collection
2:00pm CT-TACF Board Meeting - Open to All!
4:00pm Expected close of Chapter business The program is free to both members and non-members, as is lunch for those who advance register. To advance register e-mail to indicate your interest in attending. Details on logistics, parking and presentation venues, will be provided well in advance of the meeting. We thank Trinity College, and especially Dr. Scott Smedley, for their partnership in planning this meeting and providing the venue for the presentations.

The Prospect of Loss

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:52:00 -0700

by Bill Adamsen

Against the new fungus enemy, scientists at the Botanical Gardens, and at the Laboratory of Forest Pathology at Washington, will muster their forces in the interest of the lovers of chestnut parks and woodlands. the New York Times - May 1908

As we age, experience tempers our perspective on loss with incredulity replaced by pragmatism, intellectualizing the events leading to loss. We migrate from a position of disbelief to one of expectation or at least resignation. For instance, the inevitability of death and taxes prepares us for the losses we'll encounter through both. As adults we understand the permanence of such losses. Entropy follows a specific direction through time.

The Dealers are Crying Chestnuts is the title of an 1886 article in the Philadelphia Inquireras quoted in Mighty Giants. The autumn crop was scarce that year and street corner sellers complained that "selling is a losing business." Farmers of the nineteenth century were used to crop failure and famine and the vendors no doubt saw their loss as simply that - ephemeral and not permanently catastrophic. That is, they expected the crop to return the following year and their coffers to once again fill with the cash the crop brought. There was no sense of permanence to their loss.

The past six months of the US economy has subjected many if not most of us to diminished portfolios. And those forced to sell realize that "selling can be a losing business." Many of us have recent experience to draw upon - recessions from 1929, the 1970s, '80s and even the the millennium. One would think the experience of repeated loss would have prepared, even inured us to what has happened to equity markets over the past six months. Loss is like that - shock and disbelief followed by resignation and, if not careful, by growing cynicism. We've all read about and imagined, or even experienced, someone who lost it all. What is that like - how can we empathize with those who have truly lost it all? Of course history has many examples of those who knocked down rose up to earn their fortunes once again - examples include: Jay Gould, Heinrich Schliemann and Donald Trump.

This made me wonder - how did the people of the early twentieth century cope with the loss of the chestnut? They had experienced years when the harvest was poor so we've read. But did they see the end of the harvest approaching? Did they ever fathom that the world could change for the foreseeable future? When did people recognize that the harvests they had come to depend on were a thing of the past - how did they respond?

Trees affected only by severe weather conditions an expert declares. I find no evidence on the leaves of anything that could have changed their color to such an extent. Dr. W.A.Murrill the New York Times October 1908

In 1907 it was reported that over 600 million board feet of chestnut were cut in the United States. The estimated total that year for chestnut retail value (boards, food, tannins) was placed at over twenty-two million dollars. In today's dollars, the retail value of the lumber alone would exceed three billion dollars. The total food and industrial value is hard to estimate. We know from sources that Chestnut was a source of cash for those who might have grown or bartered for most household needs. Plus chestnut served as food for animal forage with accounts of man competing with his beasts to gather chestnuts before the animals devoured what reached the forest floor. Even in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a bushel of chestnut brought upwards of five dollars or more. This was welcome cash for mountain folk from Georgia to Vermont, the American chestnut's natural range.

And it wasn't just in the Appalachia. A New York Times article from 1892 (before the blight) talks about how the gathering of chestnut in Hamburg, Connecticut (present day Old Lyme) represented perhaps the best opportunity for a family to earn cash.

When the season for Chestnuting opens, all other business is laid aside for the time being. Women go first with baskets and pails, and if there are children at school they are taken out and set at work. Families frequently make $12 to $15 a day during the season, which usually lasts three weeks.

Although unknown at the time, In less than a generation, chestnuting would end in Hamburg Connecticut. Within another generation - chestnuting would end throughout the tree's native range. A NY Times article from 1908 projects that the Chestnut tree is doomed!

That all the trees in the United States are doomed to destruction by a mysterious disease called chestnut blight or canker is the gloomy prediction of Dr. W.A.Murrill ... now he asserts there is nothing to be done against it; that it must run its course like all epidemics. The chestnut is one of the principal sprout tree of the east ... a vast loss will be entailed on the eastern forest region should this disease prove as destructive as is at present threatened

And without specifics, foretells the laments of the families from Hamburg, Connecticut that no longer chestnut during the three weeks the trees used to bear fruit.

While too young to have experienced first-hand the devastation of the chestnut blight, I believe working to restore the species has helped make me more aware of what its bounty might have been. Visiting Chestnut orchards in Europe, or even at the CT Agriculture Experiment Station helps one visualize what might be when the tree returns. I hope it also it also better prepares me to understand the significance of threats from other pathogens and pests. On earth day, thinking about the impact of globalization and the shrinking of the globe - at least as far as pathogens are concerned - one can attempt to draw parallels with the Chestnut blight. The Emerald Ash Borer, Asian Long-horned Beetle, and Woolly Adelgid are all pests with potential to alter forest ecology - and to at least some extent impact our culture. So the question begs, what in terms of ecological and cultural impact is the next chestnut blight, and what lessons have we learned from chestnut that inform our ability to deal with the losses and envision the renewal.

Selection of Summer 2009 CT-TACF Intern

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:20:00 -0700

We're extremely excited to announce that Christine Cadigan has accepted the position of summer intern for the CT Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation. The internship is made possible by grants from the Stanback Scholarship Fund at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, and the CT Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation. [More]

Capturing Connecticut?s American chestnut Genes

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:26:00 -0700

By Gayle Kida

Although there are currently thousands of small native American chestnut (Castanea dentata) sprouts in the understory of Connecticut's forests, only a rare few escape or survive blight long enough to grow to flowering size. [More]

A Chestnut Stump Oddity

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:24:00 -0700

I thought I would share three small file size pics of what I believe to be a chestnut stump and its "companion tree" that is growing on a mountainside in East Granby, CT. [More]

Freinkel Awarded Nat'l Outdoor Book Award

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:01:00 -0700

Congratulations to Susan Freinkel, this years recipient of the National Outdoor Book Award for the Natural History category for her title American Chestnut: The Life, Death and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree, published by the University of California Press in Nov. 2007.

American Chestnut: The Life, Death and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree has been awarded the NOBA 2008 Book Award for Natural History

A reminder, if you are a new CT-TACF member, or simply renewing your membership, we have a special membership promotion that includes both Ms. Freinkel's book as well as the TACF Mighty Giants and a membership.

Chestnuts in China

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:46:00 -0700

I hope you get the chance to look at Sara Fitzsimmon's blog about the joint US/China scientific research visit to China. Sara blogged about the journey this past autumn which included Dr. Kim Steiner, Dr. Fred Paillet, Dr. Fred Hebard and Sara Fitzsimmons.

The blog can be found at http://www.personal.psu.edu/sff3/blogs/chestnuts_in_china/.

I was most intrigued by the photographs of keyed out chestnut trees that greatly differed from my expectations. Sara has photographs of Castenea sequinii (know as Mao Li in chinese - literally "the dwarf chestnut") that exceeded 80' in height. Similarly Castenea henryi (Zhui li) is found in sizes and form that surprised me.

A taste of what you'll find in her blog is found in this quote from Sara

... there were some very large chestnuts up there. In fact, the dominant tree in the canopy was either C. henryi or C. seguinii. Based on our observations, we did not see any C. mollissima at Zehao's plot. But with sizes > 20" dbh and most trees over 80feet in height, wonderful, straight form and no evidence of blight infection - not even suspicious lesions like we'd seen below on the road - this was a wonderful place to observe chesntut. And is also a site for us to note for continued observation and collection.

This should all be very exciting for ecologists and chestnut lovers in Connecticut, as we may find significant new sources of resistance with material that has ecological qualities more like those we would like to see in our American chestnut.

American chestnut on the Appalachian Trail

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:45:00 -0700

I was reminded this past weekend while hiking the Appalachian trail along the CT / MA border of what it must have been like a hundred years. Every so often our little hiking party would find ourselves under a spreading canopy of American chestnut leaves. A hundred years ago, when most of the trees were large American chestnut, this would have been the expectation. Today this is an unusual though not unknown treat. [More]

USFS Southern Research Station Compass Magazine

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:48:00 -0700

The most recent USF Southern Research Station "Compass" Publication, published in June 2008, is 42 pages devoted to the American chestnut. There are some fantastic articles, and a pdf version is available on-line. You may also be able to get the Southern Research Station to send you a printed version.

Southern Research Station
200 W.T Weaver Boulevard
Asheville, NC 28804-3454
Zoe Hoyle
zhoyle@fs.fed.us
828.257.4388

Like Manna from God

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:36:00 -0700

That was the title of an article published in 2004 by Professor Ralph H. Lutts, a member of the Goddard College faculty, where he coordinates an M.A. concentration in interdisciplinary environmental studies. Some of you may recall reading an excerpt of this same story in "Mighty Giants: A Chestnut Anthology." Alerted to the article by a chestnut enthusiast who contributed to the Chestnut Grower's forum. It contains some significant references to the economic contribution chestnut made to the blue ridge communities.

We'd hardly ever see these people at all, except when they came out to go to the store, and in the fall we could see 'em coming, maybe the parents and three or four kids coming down the trail. The old man would have a big coffee sack full of chestnuts on his back, and the little fellers would have smaller sacks, and even the mother would have a small sack of chestnuts caught up on her hip. They'd all trek to the store and they'd swap that for coffee and sugar and flour and things that they had to buy to live on through the winter. That's the way they made their living.

quoted from Wigginton, Foxfire 6, 403?4 via the Lutts article.

The article goes on to elaborate the mechanisms by which the locals were compensated for their harvest, and then how that harvest worked its way to market. A Fascinating article on cultural and economic impacts of this forest crop. I've provided a link to the article, and also attached a pdf version. I encourage members to take the time to read and appreciate this well researched, documented and written tale.

Like Manna From God: the American Chestnut Trade in Southwestern Virginia by Ralph H. Lutts

Plant Science Day at the CT Agricultual Experiment Station

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:05:00 -0700

New Haven, CT July 1, 2008 - The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station will hold its 98th annual Plant Science Day open house on Wednesday, August 6, at Lockwood Farm in Hamden.

The featured program will begin at 11:15 a.m. in the main tent. Steve Grant, Staff Writer, The Hartford Courant, will give the Samuel W. Johnson Memorial Lecture entitled ?Are We Making Progress? A journalist?s perspective on more than three decades of environmental and agricultural change in Connecticut.? at about 11:40 a.m.

Other speakers, from the Experiment Station Staff, are:

Dr. Sandra L. Anagnostakis ?Chestnuts Are Coming Back!? at 10:15 a.m.;
Dr. Jeffrey S. Ward on ?Japanese Barberry (Berberis Thunbergii DC)? at 10:45 a.m.;
Mr. Gregory J. Bugbee on ?Invasive Plants: Our Lakes And Ponds In Peril? at 1:15 p.m.;
and Dr. MaryJane Incorvia Mattina on ?Communication And Cooperation Through Laboratory Network: Positive Outcomes Of 9/11? at 1:45 p.m.

In addition, there will be technical demonstrations

by Dr. John F. Anderson ?Bed Bugs In Connecticut? at 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.;
Dr. Abigail A. Maynard on ?Growing Your Own Transplants For Your Vegetable Garden? at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

See the attached flyer for more.

National Geographic Focus on the American Chestnut

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:31:00 -0700

In this month's National Geographic there is a one page focus on the American chestnut.

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Chestnut's Rot Resistance

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:55:00 -0700

Article by Jason Young

Despite the enthusiasm of members of TACF and of other Chestnuts, public knowledge of American Chestnut remains esoteric at best. Today it may be equally likely that one would be introduced to chestnut by seeing it in a building as opposed to coming across a tree or the remains of a tree in the forest. Numerous volumes praise the qualities of the wood of chestnut, and it is no wonder countless structures have been built of chestnut. Connecticut is filled with these houses and barns, for the carpenter of yesteryear, there was no shortage of Chestnut.

Settlers could not have found a more suitable building wood than chestnut. The wood splits readily straight down the grain with wedge, maul or froe, and is easily worked with any tool whether it be an adze, chisel, hatchet or plane. While chestnut is not quite as strong as oak, it is considerably lighter and will outlast most oak when exposed to the elements. Chestnut's rot resistance, perhaps its finest quality, is well known. [More]