Seeds from rare American Chestnut tree found
The last week in September was one of disappointment and hope for members of the American Chestnut Foundation.
The rollercoaster of emotion for members of the Connecticut Chapter began in Ansonia, after a grove of about 10 trees growing behind the Church of the Assumption on North Main Street turned out not to be rare American chestnuts.
But a few hours later, members were elated that a true American chestnut in Shelton had produced seeds that will be planted this spring to help perpetuate a species devastated by disease decades ago.
“We got nine burrs each containing three seeds,” said Mark Vollaro, a member of both the American Chestnut Foundation and the Shelton Trails Committee. “That’s a good haul.”
There was a time when one out of every four forest trees was an American chestnut.
That changed in 1904 when a blight was discovered in an American chestnut tree at New York’s Bronx Zoo. The fungus is believed to have come to the U.S. contained in imported Chinese chestnut trees which have a resistance to the blight.
The airborne fungus quickly spread through the borough. In two years, nearly 98 percent of the Bronx’s American chestnuts had died.
Within decades, the blight spread across the country killing 4 billion American chestnut trees.
American Chestnut Foundation
The foundation was founded in 1983 with the goal of developing a blightresistant American chestnut tree and restore it to its once prominent place along the eastern U.S. where it covered land from Maine to Alabama and from the Piedmont west to the Ohio Valley, according to its website.
The group’s first research farm was established in 1989 in Meadowview, Va., with the goal to breed healthy American chestnuts with the blightresistant Chinese chestnut and eventually create a blight-resistant American chestnut.
The organization now has several such research farms and there is a thriving chestnut project overseen by the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. SUNY has spent about 30 years researching the blight attack.
In January, SUNY petitioned the U.S. Department of Agricultural for its line of Darling 58 American Chestnut trees to be given a non-regulated status. If that happens, their trees will be available to the public and various federal, state, local and private restoration groups. The American Chestnut Foundation is supportive of the SUNY project.
William Powell, director of SUNY’s American Chestnut Research program, said the once lethal cankers caused by the blight become superficial on their trees which also retain 100 percent of the American chestnut’s natural complement of genes. Their hope, he said, is to grow 10,000 blight resistant American chestnut trees over five years.
Approval for the program is currently under review by the USDA and will soon also be reviewed by the EPA and FDA, Powell said. SUNY’s Darling
58 trees can be used to breed with other American chestnut trees to rescue remnant genetic diversity. They also can be bred with the Chinese/ American crossbred trees stacking resistance genes from both approaches, he said.
Locally grown
The chapter’s work brought it to the Valley on Sept. 24 for two reasons. The Shelton tree discovered about four years ago and artificially pollinated this year with the help of United Illuminating’s equipment was due to have its seeds picked.
And while the group was in the area, members were hoping the grove in Ansonia would prove to be American chestnuts.
It was not to be. The trees were the more common Chinese chestnut.
“Look at the leaves,” said Jack Swatt, a president of the American Chestnut Foundation’s Connecticut chapter. “The American Chestnut leaf is dull, this is shiny.”
He then turned it over. “See these fine hairs? The American chestnut leaves have none.”
Swatt, who grew up in Ansonia but now lives in Wolcott, climbed the wall to get a sample of the leaves, twigs and burrs containing the nuts.
“I’ll send this out to be verified, but I think these are Chinese chestnuts or a hybrid,” he said.
Two hours later in Shelton, the group successfully harvested the American chestnut there. That chestnut had been on their radar for a while.
Four years ago, Teresa
Gallagher, the city’s natural resource manager, discovered a chestnut tree on the Rec Trail near Waverly Drive.
Vollaro said it took about a year to verify the tree was an American chestnut. An attempt last year to pollinate the tree was thwarted by an infestation of the gall wasp which defoliated the tree.
This year, the Foundation again reached out to UI and their subcontractor Lewis Tree Service. Lewis provided a bucket truck and a worker to hand pollinate the female buds, which look like pineapples.
“American chestnuts don’t self pollinate,” said Swatt. “They need another tree within a half mile or so.”