Very interesting video about the American chestnut

[catman529]

Not sure if this is the right subforum to post in, but us deer hunters tend to pay attention to feed trees so I thought it might interest some of y'all.

I came across this via Youtube recommendations. I've always heard that the American chestnut was the most dominant species in the eastern US, but this gives a more realistic look to how it might have been. I still have never seen one of these trees in person, but I hope to see a few around someday. Looks like the ash trees are going the same way as the chestnut, we are losing them left and right to emerald ash borer.

 

[FTG-05]

Wasn't there a member here selling Chestnut Trees at one time? What happened to him? Anyone have any luck with his trees?

 

[DoubleRidge]

Interesting video...thanks for sharing...we don't have any American Chestnut that I'm aware of but we have started some Dunstan and hope to add a few more in the future....would like to plant some American in the future too....as for the Ash tree... little over two years ago we were working with our Forester on a timber management plan and he recommended we cut any Ash trees while they still had value and he educated us on the emerald ash borer.....hated to hear it was coming our way but was thankful for the advance notice.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

Interesting video...thanks for sharing...we don't have any American Chestnut that I'm aware of but we have started some Dunstan and hope to add a few more in the future....would like to plant some American in the future too....as for the Ash tree... little over two years ago we were working with our Forester on a timber management plan and he recommended we cut any Ash trees while they still had value and he educated us on the emerald ash borer.....hated to hear it was coming our way but was thankful for the advance notice.

I has a forester at my place working on a forestry plan a few years ago and he told me about the Emerald Ash Boring Beatle. I had ne idea of the significant devistation these beatles would have on my timber. He recommended going ahead and logging them if i wanted to, it was a preference of wether i wanted the mess of logging or not. The timber itself isn't very valuable. One thing it did do when the Ash trees died was let alot more sunlight to the ground and I greatly underestimated how much under growth would grow because of it. Due to the ash trees dying and the ice storm, my place has much more under growth, and I am holding deer much better this year in late season.

 

[clinchbilly]

Here in east tn all the big ash trees have died. There's still a ton of small ones left maybe theres hope yet for them. I have a chestnut tree in my yard I don't think it's a pure American chestnut. But it's never failed to produce...everything eats them even had a dog that loved them.

 

[megalomaniac]

I'm old enough to remember hiking through the smokies and seeing the fallen and mostly decomposed trunks of the American Chestnut trees on the forest floor.

 

[dg7080]

Absolute shame what happen to the American Chestnut. Once a predominant tree in much of the eastern US, especially in Appalachia. There are a handful of survivor trees but they are veryyy few. The tree is really not totally extinct but considered functionally extinct.. you can plant an American sapling, but it will die off in several years as the blight will eventually infect it. For many years, the old dead trees would resprout from the root systems that were still alive, but then die off in a few years as the blight would reinfect the new growth. The blight still resides to this day in our forests even with the Chestnut gone as it is hosted in oak tress and a few other species that it does not harm.

The American Chestnut Foundation, https://acf.org, is an organization that is working to come up with a blight resistant tree to hopefully restore this once great tree. Check them out if you're interested in the American Chestnut. Lot of info here.

There are several hybrid chestnuts you can obtain and plant that are pretty much blight resistant. The Dustan is probably the most popular. These hybrids all are some cross of an Asian chestnut with the American, although they all seem to be more Asian than American in appearance and structure. I stratify a few Dunstan nuts every fall to plant on my place and then sell the extra saplings in the summer. I've sold a number of them to folks on here in the past. But hopefully someday my grandkids and great grandkids will once again see the American Chestnut as a common tree in our forests!

 

[DoubleRidge]

I has a forester at my place working on a forestry plan a few years ago and he told me about the Emerald Ash Boring Beatle. I had ne idea of the significant devistation these beatles would have on my timber. He recommended going ahead and logging them if i wanted to, it was a preference of wether i wanted the mess of logging or not. The timber itself isn't very valuable. One thing it did fo when the Ash trees died was let alot more sunlight to the ground and I greatly underestimated how much under growth would grow because of it. Due to the ash trees dying and the ice storm, my place has much more under growth, and I am holding deer much better this year in late season.

No doubt.... opening the canopy....either by the ash borer or timber harvest....has numerous benefits.

In our case we were harvesting timber per our management plan which included the Ash trees.

 

[CritterGitter]

My parents have one in their backyard in Memphis. Thing was the devil as a child playing in the backyard. We called it the "sticker ball tree" all my friends knew to stay away from it. Cant tell yall how many of those stickers my dad had to pull out of my feet

 

[rifle02]

I'm old enough to remember hiking through the smokies and seeing the fallen and mostly decomposed trunks of the American Chestnut trees on the forest floor.

I remember them as well. As a small boy there were many dead grey trees still standing in the woods. They always looked ghostly to me and the wood lasted a long time I thought. They looked as though they'd been dead for many many years and we're still standing

 

[Ski]

That video is pretty interesting, and seems a lot more sensible than the nostalgia suggests. I'd have loved to see some of the old giants. I bet they'd have been quite the sight for the early settlers coming from a largely barren Europe. I've been lucky enough to stumble upon a few wild ones. They exist. But they're not the majestic giants of lore. I'll snap some pics next time I check in on them. Going to visit one or two this week, hoping to find some dormant young sprouts I can transplant.

I've been planting a lot of the Dustans & other varieties for a few years but not having much luck. They either die off in a couple yrs or get broken by bucks if they live to get a few feet tall. The plastic tubes & fences don't seem to be much of a deterrent. I think I have less than 10 still alive out of probably 50 I've planted. If the American chestnut was as finicky & weak willed as all these newer varieties, it's no wonder they died out so fast. I'm not above taking some of the blame because I know there's probably something I'm doing wrong. But darn it I plant a lot of trees and chestnuts are the only ones I can't keep alive.

My dad used to grow a lot of the test varieties for the state of Ohio. He'd report their progression until eventually they'd die. They all died. I don't think any of them made it beyond 12" diameter. I'll check the old farm while I'm up there this week & see if any of them sprouted anew from the roots, but doubting it.

 

[AT Hiker]

Just another example that North America and Asia don't play well together.

 

[redblood]

I own a farm in flat creek tn. Just a small piece, 12 acres. Has an old house on it. Right along the rd their was a buckeye tree. One day i picked up a handful. Then i noticed they werent buckeyes, they were chestnuts. Went back to the tree, and saw its a chestnut and a heavy producer. Drops its nuts on to Lake Elaine Rd.

 

[Tom Collins]

I has a forester at my place working on a forestry plan a few years ago and he told me about the Emerald Ash Boring Beatle. I had ne idea of the significant devistation these beatles would have on my timber. He recommended going ahead and logging them if i wanted to, it was a preference of wether i wanted the mess of logging or not. The timber itself isn't very valuable. One thing it did do when the Ash trees died was let alot more sunlight to the ground and I greatly underestimated how much under growth would grow because of it. Due to the ash trees dying and the ice storm, my place has much more under growth, and I am holding deer much better this year in late season.

Marshall and Bedford have been hammered by the emerald ash borer

 

[catman529]

Marshall and Bedford have been hammered by the emerald ash borer

Marshall, Maury, Williamson and Davidson are getting hit hard too. Still plenty of healthy trees but it ain't looking good.

 

[BSK]

Great video catman! Thanks for posting. Always good to see hard science counteracting myth.

 

[BSK]

I'm old enough to remember hiking through the smokies and seeing the fallen and mostly decomposed trunks of the American Chestnut trees on the forest floor.

When my family first bought our property, which is mostly rocky ridges, in 1987, I was intrigued by the number of hollow stumps I found on the ridge-tops. Only the outer ring of wood was preserved, just a few inches thick. The center of the stumps were rotted away. These stumps were super wide (3-4 feet) and you could tell they had been cut off level just a foot or so off the ground.

An old forester that reviewed my place at the time told me those were Chestnut stumps. He said by the look of our forest (all the same age oaks) the property had probably been clear-cut in the 1920s as the Chestnut Blight was moving in - to salvage the trees before all the Chestnuts died.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

I haven't seen s live Ash tree in two years. I am afraid they are going to be a extinct.

 

[Rockhound]

One university (auburn maybe?) That does alot of work on American chestnut trees, have created a GMO American chestnut, that is blight resistant. They were having to individually bag every bloom to keep it from spreading. Last I read they were fixing to start the hurdles of the government to see if they could release them into the public.

 

[Rockhound]

USDA to decide fate of American chestnut restoration - Alliance for Science

University researchers are seeking approval to restore the iconic chestnut to American forests by using a genetically engineered (GE) variety that can tolerate the blight that has killed billions of wild trees. If the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) accepts the deregulation...

allianceforscience.cornell.edu