American Chestnut Cooperators’Äô Foundation
 2007 Newsletter
Send your report via accf-online.org/report.htm  or to
Forest Service Road 708,  Newport, Virginia  24128
Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:

If you have reported on previous ACCF plantings and donated $20 in 2007, and if we have a Grower Agreement Form on file in your name, you are welcome to order American chestnut seedlings (through November) and/or nuts (until October 15). The 2007 cost per bundle of 25 or fewer American chestnut seedlings is $27.  Growers west of the Mississippi need to add $5 extra per bundle to cover higher mailing cost.   Please make the check payable to ACCF.

From the 2006 Virginia harvest we sent 3,880 nuts to cooperating growers, 4,698 nuts to nurseries in West Virginia, and last winter the nursery distributed 4,535 American chestnut seedlings to our cooperating growers.

HARVEST
You can either harvest chestnuts out of the trees in their burs or off the ground where they have dropped.  Following last fall’Äôs abundant harvest,  I thought we might switch to this second method, eliminate the storage problem and the job of getting nuts out of burs, and greatly decrease the numbers to be processed and sent to growers.   The squirrels have been good cooperators for several years now, planting nuts in every one of our breeding orchards and even starting some of them right in the row where there was a space, so I do not mind letting them have a bigger share.   However, Dave McCurdy tells me that the nursery chestnuts will produce a much smaller crop this fall because of poor pollination.  So we must try for the big harvest once again, to be able to send the nursery sufficient seed to make 2008 seedlings.  
    Chestnut trees are individuals with different schedules:  they do not all ripen their chestnuts at the same time, but over a period of roughly two weeks which, in Virginia, usually begins in the last week of September.  Harvest starts when burs begin to crack open, then the burs on that tree may be ready to pick.  However, burs which contain no viable nuts may crack open as much as two weeks early, and chestnut trees often contain small numbers where the flowers happened not to be fertilized.  Furthermore, the first chestuts to make flowers contain much larger numbers of infertile nuts, because many of their flowers were receptive before any pollen was avaible.  So before picking a tree we make sure that the cracked burs contain full, fat chestnuts, not sunken blanks.  We use hand clippers and a pruning pole that extends up to 12 feet, and sometimes also a 6-foot ladder.  Wearing leather gloves we collect the burs into dog food bags, marked with the date and the name of the mother tree and store them in a rodent-free cool place, in the basement or in lidded garbage pails in the shade.
    MANY THANKS to the volunteers who helped pick chestnut burs in 2006:   Matt Habersack, Albert Ward, Nate Faris, Rich and Harold Pierce.     To help at harvest, e-mail Lucille at accf@hughes.net for a date and directions.  We will not begin picking the burs before the week of September 24, leaving our yard at 9 a.m.;  in  afternoons the first week of October, we should begin getting the nuts out of the burs.   We will not harvest on the weekends of September 22 and 29 because of home football games.   
    We check the storage bags once a week, dumping the contents onto a picnic table to see if more burs have cracked open .  Wearing heavier leather gloves, we remove the nuts from their burs, then return the unopened burs to their bags for a few more days in storage, when they can be checked again.  In years of fall drought, some burs will not crack open unassisted:  rolling the bur back and forth underfoot sometimes does the trick.  Burs which cannot be opened by humans may be scattered in the woods, where the animals can deal with them or they might be planted, expecting a very low percentage to make seedlings. 
 
WEEVILS  are common throughout the range of American chestnuts, especially in areas where Chinese chestnuts have been planted and their nuts and burs are left to rot on the ground.  The insect lays its eggs in the young chestnut flowers and weevils (tiny worms) develop inside the chestnuts and burs.  The weevils over-winter in the ground where they emerged from wasted nuts and spent burs to hatch out the following spring and increase destruction of the next nut crop.  To control weevils, you make a clean harvest, burn or bury the burs and ruined nuts and encourage your neighbors to do likewise.

PROCESSING & STORAGE
We must assume there may be weevils in the chestnuts, so we give our chestnuts a hot water bath at 120 F for 20 minutes to  kill  weevils the same day that the nuts come out of the burs.  After the hot bath, we put the chestnuts in a cold bath to stop the heat treatment.  Once they are cooled down, we pat them dry and spread them on newspapers till they are no longer damp; then we pack them with slightly damp peat moss in plastic bags with a few pin holes for air exchange and send them to growers.
    Those chestnuts which we keep to plant in our research plots, we place inside plastic mayonaise or peanut butter jars in which small holes have been drilled, in a 50/50 mix of sand and peat moss.  We bury the jars under about 4 inches of soil with grave markers.  In Virginia the chestnuts can be safely stored this way until early February, when many of them will begin sprouting.  We have direct-seeded chestnuts in November, December, January and February and have had the best success with January planting.
      Growers who do not plant their chestnuts when received, but store them in the refrigerator, should check the bag at least once a week, to be sure the chestuts are not drying out or getting wet and becoming moldy, then turn the bag onto the other side.  It is too easy to forget this chore and let the seed spoil in storage; in this way, very large numbers of seed are lost each year because growers cannot plant when they receive them.
    You may notice on the Grower Agreement Form that we will be sending only 10 chestnuts per grower request.   Growers who need a larger number for a group project may obtain more by volunteering at harvest, taking your chestnuts in the burs and doing the processing yourselves.

GYPSY  MOTH has invaded Giles County.  Luckily, only one of our research plots was infested.  I first noticed tiny black caterpillars toward the end of May, picked off by hand those within reach on our chestnuts, squashed them and sprayed with Sevin.  Their numbers and size increased at an alarming rate.  It became necessary to visit the plot at least twice a week, pick them off and stomp them, spray after each rain.  While the tall canopy oaks were completely stripped of leaves, followed by nearly all the other hardwoods and understory trees and bushes, our chestnuts thrived in the additional sunlight.  The battle to save them lasted about 3 weeks, and we must expect a similar job in this plot in future years.  We noticed that the gypsy moth does not eat the leaves of the tulip poplar or cucumber magnolia.  This suggests that plantings located in clearings within solid groves of these species (such as the Pandapas plot below our yard) may be less likely to suffer a gypsy moth attack.
         
GROWERS REPORT 
516 of the American chestnuts I planted are still growing.  Among them, 155  are new this year, although 20 of these are not planted on their permanent sites but growing in a yard nursery, for transplant following dormancy this November.  These 20 are survivors from a bunch of rejects: they appeared during processing to be in very poor condition, too discolored --suggesting possible mold-- or too dry to send to growers or to the nursery; they are a great example of the benefit of getting the seed right into the ground.   In addition to the numbers above, we have at least 3 dozen chestnuts which I did not count because they were planted by the squirrels.  My tallest seedling is Pacman E; I am unable to measure it without help.  The tallest grown from 2006 nuts are 2 feet.  Six of my seedlings are bearing nuts.  Losses in our research plots were attributed to voles, root rot or blight.

As of December 7, we have received 194 reports, for a total of 5,027 ACCF chestnuts reported.  These numbers will be updated, as more reports come in.

GRAFTERS REPORT
  The past two years I have tried a few topgrafts (whips), choosing stocks among sunny -side branches on blight resistant American chestnuts which are growing in places where a pollinator is distant or lacking.   On the down side, because the grafted branches are only 1/4 inch in diameter, the graft is vulnerable to blight.  However, these grafts are much easier to execute because you are not lying on the ground and there is nothing to inhibit making the cuts exactly as you want to, so I judged it worth the risk.   Two of my new grafts this year are topwork and  although they are still alive, their branches could go out this winter.   Including these, I have 19 new grafts growing in 4 sites.  All but 2  (triangles) are whip grafts.  Last winter we lost several big grafts (voles eating the roots) and had the tops blight-killed in several others.  Surviving are 105 grafts, divided among 9 sites.  The tallest is Thorofare Gap, grafted in our yard in 1991.  Forty-one of my grafts bear nuts, and their pollen is improving the potential of the chestnuts harvested in 5 of our breeding orchards.
    Yes, indeed, I am bragging a little, hoping to interest some more of you in learning to graft, to improve your own chestnut plantings, like Harold Pierce is doing in Alabama:  he has 2 grafts from 2005, one from 2006  and 8 from 2007;  all  bark grafts into chinquapin, they represent a very nice variety of blight resistant American chestnuts.  Health problems prevented Carl  Mayfield from grafting this year, but he has sent in a wonderful report of  29 grafts surviving from past years; among them are nearly all the American chestnuts of note in our breeding program.

NATHAN PEASE UPDATE
The Nathan nutgraft on which we have been reporting the progress of blight-resistance trials has been killed by a root rot.  Another, smaller Nathan nutgraft on a different site is in its second summer with blight.  It has 7 burs. 

WATERING
The bare-root seedlings from the nursery require one gallon of water each week of drought through their first two growing seasons.  For successful planting, it is very important to plan for this.  On planting sites where watering may be a problem, it is best to plant smaller numbers and consider starting from nuts instead of seedlings.
    Here in Virginia, we often have drought in August, and in some of our plots, also in July and September.  So we have been establishing the Pandapas plot, by direct-seeding  about 20 per year, with the goal of making a  grove of 100 American chestnuts in the National Forest 100 yards down the mountain from our yard.   We plant the nuts inside 8 inch tree shelters, sunken a few inches in the ground and surrounded by wire cages to deter raccoons.  The small seedlings, less than two feet tall, can survive on a quart of water per week of drought because their roots are equal to the stems and sometimes larger (whereas nursery seedling roots were trimmed at lifting).  We remove the short tree shelters after the first growing season.
    In Turkey Run, the two research plots are both 100 yards up the mountain from the access road.  These plots were originally for grafting, but so many of the native root systems have been weakened or killed, we decided to plant about a dozen seedlings to make up the defecit.  Direct-seeding there just provided more food for a large vole population.   Therefore, this winter we started nuts in December by the Moote Method, in a south-facing window , as follows:  using 18 inch tree shelters with newspaper liners, we filled them with a 50/50 mix of damp peat moss & sand, let the fill settle for a day and then press a nut one inch down, lay  plastic wrap on top until the sprouts begin to emerge (about one month), water sparingly, the same as other house plants.  In January and February we dug 2 foot planting holes and put gallon milk jugs full of water, 3 each per hole, inside the cages where animals could not steal the water.   During a rainy week in May, we transplanted the 6 to 8-inch tall seedlings.  These tiny seedlings also can get by on about a quart of water per week of drought. Watering them in the cool of early morning through the summer heat was made easy, with the supply already on site.

We thank the National Wild Turkey Federation for continuing generous support of our cooperative research with the Virginia Department of Forestry, USDA-Forest Service and Virginia Tech, breeding for blight resistance, establishing and maintaining forest plots of ACCF all-American chestnuts.
   
SPECIAL THANKS to more OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS:
     John B. Bushmann, Ken James, Carl Mayfield,  and Violet Pesinkowski,  long-term, big supporters of the research for American chestnut restoration.
    Philip Latasa once again volunteered several days  in the Lesesne last winter, making the work go faster as we moved protection cages, removed tree mats, weeded and treated the soil with gypsum (where we have had root-rot in the past) and prepared new planting holes.
    Remmington Bolt  also volunteered several days last winter, pruning trees at the Airport and cutting trees at Turkey Run.       

    These are a few of my favorite things:  working outdoors, the company of towhees, bluebirds and indigo buntings, watching chestuts grow, the green of new leaves unfolding on grafts and seedlings,  a complete row of American chestnuts, a  fawn springing  up from its bed in the tall weeds, a newly mown or completely weeded research plot, hundred-foot tall tulip poplars right next to a chestnut plot, the perfect mornings in March and April when I  graft with highest expectations,  the moments each year when the last newsletter is in the mail, the last nuts are off to growers, the last orders, to the nursery, and lots of reports about ACCF chestnuts.  Thanks again for sending your report.
            Respectfully submitted,

            Lucille Griffin, Executive Director

Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president,  Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord         College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer,   Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, Cookeville, TN

Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts

American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation
                2006 Newsletter
     Send your report via accf-online.org/report.htm  or to
           2667 Forest Service Road 708
             Newport, Virginia  24128

Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:

       We shall distribute American chestnut seedlings and/or nuts to growers who have made the annual $20 donation to ACCF research, have sent in a completed Grower Agreement Form and have reported in 2006 on the status of their previous ACCF planting projects.
     There in no monetary profit in our chestnut distributions.  Each year we aim to break even.  After learning the nursery cost per bundle of seedlings, we make a price to include the average cost of priority mailing east of the Mississippi.  The past few years, the Foundation has lost money on seedling distributions, and this year the nursery costs have gone up one dollar per bundle of 25.  Therefore, the 2006 cost per bundle of 25 American chestnut seedlings is $25.  Growers west of the Mississippi need to add $5 per bundle to cover a higher mailing cost.  Please make all checks payable to ACCF.

From the 2005 Virginia harvest we sent 2,378 nuts to cooperating growers, 7,541 nuts to the nursery in West Virginia, and the nursery distributed 5011 American chestnut seedlings to our cooperating growers.

MANY THANKS
Right up front, we wish to thank all the volunteers who helped with the 2005 chestnut harvest:   Tim Logan, Jack Torkelson, Bruce Engen, Gary Pace, Philip Latasa, Michael Linder and Steve Prupas.
     To pitch in at harvest, e-mail Lucille at accf@hughes.net for a date and directions.  We are likely to begin picking the burs mornings on the week of September 18, leaving our yard at 9 a.m.;  we should begin getting the nuts out of the burs in  afternoons by October 2.   We will not be scheduling any harvest help for the weekends of September 16, 23 and 30 because the home football games monopolize local accommodations and highways.

A CHESTNUT PARABLE
Before the deer herd had become a problem,  perhaps 20 years ago, when we did not have enough cooperating growers to plant all our seednuts, I used to plant the extras along the edges of wildlife clearings in the National Forest or along the Forest Service Road.  Since they were planted without protection, nearly all of those chestnuts have been eaten.  Fewer than a dozen have survived continuous munching and exist as tiny bushes.  Just one among  the hundreds planted has made a great escape.  It is almost 4 inches dbh and 30 feet tall, growing in semi-shade on the steep bank opposite our driveway.  Last winter when it developed a fist-sized canker halfway up the trunk, I expected the top to die this summer.  However,  in September, the only dead foliage is on a lower branch.  Gary’Äôs opinion of this tree, ’ÄúKeep an eye on it.’Äù  In keeping with the designations assigned to our yard seedlings, we named this chestnut, G-wiz.
    This story illustrates several points:  First, it is unwise to assume that chestnuts can grow into trees without benefit of protection cages.  Second, the larger a chestnut can grow before its first blight attack, the better its chances to express blight resistance.  Third, it is very important to note when a chestnut is first attacked by blight and observe its reaction.  Fourth, a chestnut which has not been attacked by blight (blight free), however lovely to look upon, is not yet anything special.  Finally, one observation of a blight resistant reaction is insufficient evidence;  to be included in our breeding program, the chestnut has to prove itself by surviving five to 10 additional years without death in its crown.

ESCAPES
As more and more enthusiasts comb the woods each year, more discoveries of large American chestnuts (over 10 inches dbh) are reported.  In most cases these chestnuts are ’Äúdisease escapes’Äù, growing in the far north, south or western edge of the natural range for the species or in a pocket sheltered from normal wind dispersal of the blight fungus.  They may be blight free or they may have grown quite large before their first blight attack.  Like my G-wiz chestnut, they also bear watching.  Although they are likely to die from blight within a few years,  there is always a chance that some may prove to have durable blight resistance.

RAISING AMERICAN CHESTNUTS
The ACCF chestnuts we distribute to you, our cooperating growers, have much greater chances to express blight resistance.  We estimate at least 10%.  The best possible result will be obtained by growers who plant in well-drained, sandy loam soil, in full sun, on cove slopes facing North to East at altitudes below 2,500 feet, protecting against injury to the trunk and leader of each seedling with 5-foot-tall wire caging, and regularly checking seedlings to deal with other problems as they arise.
    The most important site requirement is that it be well-drained, to avoid the possibility of root rot.  Growers who have discovered root rot among their plantings should try to limit its spread by fencing off and marking the area with bright flagging, avoiding work there when the ground is wet, planting grasses but no seedlings downhill from the infected area and treating tools, gloves and footwear with a 20% Clorox solution immediately after use there (for more information, scroll down and see Phytophthora, in the 2003 Newsletter).    
    Tree mats (Forestry Suppliers, Inc.) are helpful in controlling weeds inside the cages, but they also offer cover for voles that can nip off the chestnut roots.  Weeds and grasses are serious competition to young seedlings and will greatly retard their growth, leaving the seedlings at high risk for a longer period.   In  very fertile plots we are unable to control the weeds without tree mats.  We lift the mats two or three times a year, pull weeds and put poison (Prozap) into vole runs and tunnels.
    Japanese beetles can be picked off by hand from lower branches and hit with Sevin on leaves that are out of reach. Where a plot is isolated, you can spread Milky Spore over the grassy area to wipe out the Japanese beetle problem. 
    Ambrosia beetles can be eliminated if the infestation is caught early in spring and sprayed with permethrin through that growing season and again in March of the next year.
    When a small chestnut seedling (under an inch in diameter) is girdled by blight, the stem can be cut near ground level and the wound covered with soil.  If its root system is healthy, a new shoot will take over, grow rapidly and give the chestnut a second chance.  
    Pruning is not usually advised, but sometimes you need to cut out blighted branches.  This should be done in the fall when the blight fungus is least active.  Cover the wound with pruning seal.  When a chestnut has more than one stem, choose the strongest and cut the others below ground level, cover these cuts with soil.
    The first  swollen blight canker often occurs at the base of a chestnut.  We advise making mud packs to cover basal cankers through winter dormancy and keep them in place, watering occasionally, until the seedling is 1.5 inches in diameter.
    When the leaves of a seedling are not dark green, there may be a nutrient deficiency.  This can occur occasionally in a plot where other seedlings are making healthy growth.   We spray yellowish leaves with magnesium sulfate and repeat the following week if their color seems to be improving.  Otherwise, spray chelated iron and observe whether it makes a difference.  This is quicker and cheaper than individual soil or leaf tests for each plant.
    About midway through the growing season, often the leaves on the tips of branches in many chestnuts become rumply and curled up.  This is an unidentified disease, possibly a virus.  It is not lethal, but it sharply curtails growth for the rest of that season.  This year we noticed that in many cases the curly leaves are lighter in color than the other leaves on the chestnut.  We sprayed magnesium sulfate and iron chelate on the curly tips, on the possibility that the chestnuts are deprived of nutrients.  In many cases, the curly leaves turned a darker green, and in several cases the seedling resumed production of normal leaves.   
         
GROWERS REPORT 
This year I have 406 American chestnut seedlings growing, of which 105 are from chestnuts planted last winter.  My tallest is Pacman E, which has had swollen blight cankers since 1999. Six of my seedlings are bearing nuts.  My losses are nearly all attributed to voles or blight.
As of December 15, we have received 152 reports, for a total of 10,092 ACCF chestnuts reported.  The numbers above will be updated, as more reports of chestnuts from ACCF distributions come in.

GRAFTERS REPORT
In the past I have reported some instances of high percentage takes with bark and cleft grafting methods. Unfortunately, the numbers have not held up.  Many bark and cleft grafts make spectacular growth on incomplete unions, but for many years they remain highly vulnerable to  total wipeout from high winds.  Comparing my notes, I was unable to find anything to account for this uneven reliability.  So I have given up on them; beginning this year I am making only whip and triangle grafts.  John Elkins still has good success with bark grafts.
    I have 90 grafts growing well, of which only 9 are new this year.  My tallest is Thorofare Gap, at 50 feet; it was grafted in 1991 and has had swollen blight cankers since 1998. Thirty-one of my grafts are bearing nuts. Losses are attributed to incomplete unions and blight.  
    A few of our best grafters have reported early:  Carl Mayfield has 42 ACCF grafts, of which 7 are new this year.  Ed Greenwell has 49 grafts, of which the tallest is 25 feet.  Carl & Ed make mostly nut grafts.  Harold Pierce has 6 grafts, of which 3 are new this year; Harold grafts into chinquapin stocks.

NATHAN PEASE UPDATE
The end of this growing season finds Nathan Pease 25 feet tall, with no new blight cankers and its one trunk canker surrounded by swollen tissue which has expanded inward to cover a little of the exposed wood.   We are watching it: two years down and 8 to go.

We thank the National Wild Turkey Federation for continuing generous support of our cooperative research with the Virginia Department of Forestry, USDA-Forest Service and Virginia Tech, establishing and maintaining forest plots of ACCF all-American chestnuts.
    The Pandapas plot now has 79 American chestnuts growing.  They are mostly first generation crosses among chestnuts that were not represented in our original intercrosses:  Thompson, NC Champ, Ragged Mt, and JEB.  We also planted some volunteers into which we plan to graft the parent trees (above).  From 2006, we have one JEB graft started.   The tallest chestnut in this plot is a 5-foot (Thompson x NC Champ) from a nut planted in 2003. 
    At Turkey Run 18 grafts survive, and two of these are new in 2006;  all are in the  (Ruth x Miles) family, F2s.  The two grafts killed in 2005 by ambrosia beetle have sprouted back; time will tell whether these sprouts come from the grafts or the blight-susceptible stocks.   One graft made male flowers only.
    Three seedlings planted in 2002 survive; the tallest is 5 feet. We direct-seeded twelve more chestnuts harvested from a (Ruth x Miles) F2, by planting them inside 2-feet tall, fine-mesh hardware cylinders that were sunken a foot into the soil which contained glass shards; most germinated, but all were killed by voles.  To plant these places we shall try one more time, in winter of 2007, using seedlings grown from  an open-pollinated F2.  Most of the work in this plot is management, cutting the other trees, so that the chestnuts are the tallest trees and wind dispersal of pollen (perhaps next year) may be most efficient.
      In the Lesesne State Forest, Nelson County, we have 234 seedlings mostly growing from various F1 and F2 intercrosses along with a smaller number of open-pollinated nuts from the parent trees of these crosses.  Sixty-four of these are from nuts planted last winter; some are survivors from a test planting  (to determine whether Phytophthora was still a problem) in 20 holes which were treated with SubdueMax drench in 2004 and 2005 after the previous seedlings died of root rot.  This year, all seedlings and grafts in the lower half of the 3.4 acre plot received a dressing of  gypsum, which is said to disrupt Phytophthora reproduction, and the grafts and seedlings near or downhill from the 1980 Thompson and Ragged Mt grafts (which have survived with blight control for 25 years and are now seriously threatened by Phytophthora root rot)  were surrounded with a thick mulch of grass clippings, to inhibit spread of  this root disease.  Fungicide treatments are being continued only within the canopy of the two large grafts, above.
   
OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS:
     John B. Bushmann, Ken James, Karl Mayfield,  and Violet  Pesinkowski continue extensive support for and participation in American chestnut restoration research.

    Philip Latasa was most helpful during the 2005 chestnut harvest and  also volunteered many hours working in the Lesesne, lopping off ailanthus, digging and preparing the planting holes, making protection cages and pruning trees that shaded the planting area.

    Jenny & Lizzy Cooper again spent their spring vacation grafting  American chestnuts.    
   
FOR INTERNET RESOURCES:    Scroll down to the end of the 2005 or 2004 newsletter. 

      We are a very small, nonprofit foundation, capable of doing a very big job for American chestnut restoration because our scientists and officers are all dedicated volunteers and the Foundation neither owns nor rents property.  Thus, we can make progress with a small budget, because funds are needed only to support the research, to pay for student assistance in the laboratory and field, for plot maintenance and supplies, and for correspondence and mailing seednuts to you, our cooperating growers.  The thousands of ACCF American chestnuts growing in research plots on public lands and on your lands, and you, our cooperating growers, are the most important assets of our Foundation.  Our rewards are in knowledge reaped from scientific research and field experience and shared with the public.  We thank you for joining in and supporting our work and look forward to counting many more of your reports among this year’Äôs rewards.

            Respectfully submitted,

            Lucille Griffin, Executive Director


Other ACCF Directors:
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president,  Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord         College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer,   Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, Cookeville, TN

Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts

American Chestnut Cooperator's Foundation

2005 Newsletter

The 2005 Seedling Cost is $40 per 50 or fewer year-old, bare-root American chestnut seedlings mailed to growers east of the Mississippi. For western growers, the cost is $50 per 50 seedlings, to cover the additional mailing cost. Seedling orders need to be submitted on a Cooperating Grower Agreement form (inside leaf), unless we already have one here on file for you. Make the check out to ACCF, and please remember to include your annual donation if you have not already sent it in. Early ordering is strongly advised; we ran out of seedlings in the beginning of November in 2004.

Everyone who has a Grower Agreement on file with us and has sent in a donation this year may request up to 15 American chestnut seeds. But you will need to get your request in early, also: all chestnut seeds which have not been requested by October 15, will be shipped to the nursery to make next year’Äôs seedlings. We have discontinued the practice of sending out larger seed lots to individuals or groups. The work of processing, extracting them from their burs and then the hot water treatment, 120 F for 20 minutes, is very time-consuming, and we do not have the capacity to store large numbers of chestnut seed.

From the 2004 Virginia harvest we sent 4,716 nuts to cooperating growers and the nursery in West Virginia, and the nursery distributed 5544 American chestnut seedlings to our cooperating growers.

The only way to get more than 15 American chestnuts is to help out at harvest and take up to 100 nuts home with you, in their burs, and process them yourself. We need volunteer help at chestnut harvest, usually beginning in the third week of September, to cut out the burs on the trees ready to be harvested and put burs into dog food bags marked by mother tree. The seed orchards are in Blacksburg and Giles County. I usually leave home around 9 and work till noon or until the work for that day is done. Some days there may be only one tree to harvest, other days, many. The burs are cut with an extension pole pruner usually 12 feet long; you hold it overhead, stretching to reach the burs and bracing against the rope pull that works the blade. It is hard work, for strong, younger persons. To pitch in at harvest, e-mail Lucille at accf@direcway.com for a date and directions.
We store the burs in the basement about a week, until many are cracking open, then extract nuts from the burs, wearing heavy leather gloves, working outside on a picnic table, usually afternoons, beginning in the end of September. This is a repetitive job that wears out your hands and grip. We would be grateful for help with this, also.

Voles are determined miners of American chestnuts, eating the nuts before they sprout and eating the roots when they grow below the protection of the tree shelter. Direct-seeding chestnuts is wasted effort in the face of large vole populations and nursery plantings may be possible only with special precautions. The bed should be prepared by digging a trench one foot deep and lining the bottom and sides with quarter-inch grid hardware cloth before replacing the soil and planting. The hardware cloth should extend several inches above ground where it is joined by a ch chicken-wire fence. Poison baits to be placed in PVC pipes or tire halves can be obtained at feed stores, but they require daily monitoring to remove the dead voles.

The Asian ambrosia beetle is a tiny pest which has been found throughout the southeast, from Texas to coastal Maryland. To reproduce, the female bores pinholes into the sapwood of young, thin-barked hardwoods. The beetle damage is most serious when it begins in early March and April, and it continues at lower levels until fall. While many other tree species may survive, an attack by ambrosia beetles can be a death sentence for American chestnut because the blight fungus may enter through the many tiny holes.
Defend against this pest by examining the lower trunk and branches of chestnuts smaller than 3 inches in diameter at breast height: look for the telltale pinholes; sometimes a tiny column of sawdust is protruding from the hole. Check once a week at least, beginning in March and throughout the season. If any pinholes are found, treat the entire bark surface weekly with a spray containing permethrin. Prune out heavily infested stems and burn them. Stems with strong root systems can sprout back if you cut the stem near ground level and cover the wound with soil.
Here in the Virginia mountains, this is the first year we have found ambrosia beetle damage. Because so much is at stake in the four research plots involved, we have been spraying all the chestnut stems 3 inches in diameter and smaller in these plots. The beetles had been at work for two months before we discovered them, so we may lose at least six large grafts. We hope, through vigilance and prompt treatment, that you may be able to avoid similar losses.

This Grower’Äôs Report covers twelve separate American chestnut research plots: eleven are in three Virginia counties and one is in West Virginia. Half are in yard or orchard settings and half are in the forest. I have been planting American chestnuts since 1985. This year I counted 331 survivors, of which 131 are F2 seedlings (second generation all-Americans). My tallest is Pacman, at about 35 feet, and three of my seedlings are bearing nuts. Seedling losses this year I attribute, in order of importance, to poor germination, hungry voles, blight, Phytophthora, and other unidentified varmints.

As of MAY 8, we have received 141 reports from growers, for a total of 6639 ACCF chestnuts reported.

This Grafter’Äôs Report covers eight grafting plots in Virginia, all of which contain seedling plantings, also.  Four plots are in the National Forest. For 2005, I have only 15 new grafts surviving. From all the years since 1990, I have 111 surviving grafts of which 26 are bearing nuts. Thirty-eight are F2 grafts, and three of these are bearing. As always, graft failure is the biggest problem, followed by premature blight infection, undermining of the root systems by a root rot or voles, and now also, the ambrosia beetle.
We look forward to reading your grafting reports, and as they are received, they will be posted in the on-line newsletter here: 

Carl Mayfield reports 41 surviving ACCF grafts.  Harold Pierce beginning this year grafting into chinquipin has 4 grafts.


Nathan Pease is the occasional subject of inquiry. Ed Greenwell named his Pease seedling, Nathan when it showed precocious blight resistance. You may remember that we began the blight-resistance trial on a Nathan nutgraft in May 2004, by inoculating the lowest branch in two places with a killing strain of the blight fungus. This May the results were disappointing: the level of blight resistance recorded in the one-year test is very low and would be insufficient for inclusion in our breeding program. However, there is the second, long-term test: this spring we inoculated a blight canker on Nathan’Äôs trunk with hypovirulent strains of the blight fungus. A few of our American chestnuts, which did not test well at first, have since shown impressive long-term resistance (10 years +).

Breeding: We have just over a hundred control bags up in six different mother trees. All of this year’Äôs intercrosses are first generation all-Americans, to increase the numbers that may be available for future testing in several new lines which we started in previous years. Although the mother trees have demonstrated very impressive long-term blight resistance, we have learned from past resistance trials that blight resistance of the parent trees does not regularly combine. Equal or better blight resistance may be expected to show up in about 10% of the progeny. This is one reason why breeding for blight resistance takes so much time.
Another reason is premature infection with the blight fungus. The one-year resistance test requires trunks blight free and at least 1.5 inches in diameter at breast height. Before they reach this size, many American chestnuts have blight on the main stem. This is the case with our large, bearing F2 grafts. We inoculated their cankers with hypovirulence and will have to watch them over 10 years, instead of being able to make selections for the next generation following a one-year test. Thus, we did not put bags on the F2 flowers.

We thank the National Wild Turkey Federation for continuing support of our cooperative research with the Virginia Department of Forestry, USDA-Forest Service and Virginia Tech, establishing and maintaining forest plots of ACCF all-American chestnuts.
The Pandapas plot has 96 prepared planting holes, with staked 5-foot weldwire cages and tree mats for weed control. From the 2003 planting, 7 (Th x J) and 7 volunteers (for grafting) have survived. Last winter, we direct-seeded nuts to fill all the empty spaces for a total of 96 and planted four to six daffodils around each cage in an attempt to create an area unappetizing to voles. We also made a small nursery planting with 30 extra from this seed lot in a cold frame in our yard, for a backup system, in case of poor germination or theft. Only 31 of the direct-seeded chestnuts germinated and all 30 in the backup nursery were stolen by voles. The tallest new seedling is 21 inches. We are contemplating strategies for planting the 51 empty spaces this winter.
At Turkey Run 15 grafts survive. Two each were killed this past spring by blight and ambrosia beetle. The few new grafts made failed, so we concentrated efforts to cut back the competing tree species and bring more sunlight on the grafts and other chestnuts which may be grafted in a year or two, when they are growing more vigorously. We direct-seeded seven (Ruth x Miles) to fill the empty places in the small planting area where three chestnuts from previous plantings survive. Here we had excellent germination, but one by one, at six to eight inches tall, the five planted in the bottom row died, their roots trimmed off by voles.
In the Lesesne State Forest, Nelson County, we planted in holes where nuts or seedlings had previously failed 59 open-pollinated nuts and 12 volunteer seedlings. None of the nuts germinated in the two sections in which we have a Phytophthora problem, while seven of the small volunteer seedlings survive there, but with insignificant incremental growth. We continue to treat with SubdueMax fungicide drench, spring and fall, most of the lower half of this 3.5 acre plot and also tried a chicken manure treatment in the spring.
In the 2003 planting section, most of the open pollinated nuts germinated and 9 have survived. Nearly all of the controlled pollinated nuts germinated, also: we have 27 (NCC x J), 26 (VT2 x G4) and 12 Pacman. Total survivors in this planting, including 6 F1 back-crosses to the Floyd parent, are 80. Many of the new seedlings were at or over 20 inches tall when checked on August 9, and the tallest 2-year-old is 4.5 feet.
In the 2002 planting, 88 of the original F2 seedlings survive, along with 5 F2 grafts and 5 volunteers for future grafting. The tallest seedling is 12 feet. Most of the losses in this planting have been to Phytophthora.
The western third of the Lesesne plot contains the big 1980 grafts and many root systems from the original Dietz planting in 1969, some of which may receive grafts in the future. We have nine new grafts in this area, along with 12 others made since 2000. Three of the older grafts and one from this spring have died apparently from root rot, along with two small seedlings. Ten seedlings survive, although the tallest has yellowing leaves which might be an early sign of stress from root rot. In addition to the fungicide drench, we spray yellowing leaves with magnesium sulfate and amend the soil inside the cage with compost, in case the problem may be nutritional.
We have gone into detail, to give the newcomers among an idea of some growing problems in forest settings, as well as any planting place without very good drainage.


Outstanding Cooperators:
John B. Bushmann, Ken James, Karl Mayfield, and Violet Pesinkowski are long-term, outstanding supporters of and contributors to American chestnut research.

Charlie Elgin and another gentleman, whose name I have misplaced, helped with the 2004 chestnut harvest. We hope to recognize the unidentified gentleman here next year.

Jenny & Lizzy Cooper cut trees in the Turkey Run plot and grafted, spending their spring vacation helping the American chestnut cause.

INTERNET RESOURCES:  Ed’Äôs Web page showing Nathan’Äôs progress  http://www.accf-online.org/nathanblight.htm
The Tennessee ACCF site, also by Ed:  http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/1436/

ACCF Links page, by Ed, featuring a March 2003, photo of Jenny Cooper grafting in Craigs Creek research plot:
http://www.accf-online.org/links.html

We are working for American chestnut restoration with the hope of making a small contribution which might be multiplied many times throughout the natural range and through the generations to improve our forests. This is often hard work and also demands a stubborn, long-term commitment, keen observation skills and a thoughtful, rapid response in problem-solving. It teaches the habit of keeping notes and is a great introduction to scientific study. With our work product constantly exposed to the forces of nature, we learn to develop patience in adversity and humility in success. Our spirits are uplifted by each small advance, and we give thanks. These are the values which made our country great. You cannot go wrong by involving the whole family, children and grandchildren in American chestnut restoration.

Respectfully submitted,
Lucille Griffin, Executive Director


Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president, Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer, Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, Cookeville, TN

Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts


American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation
                2004 Newsletter
    

Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:

STRONG HELP WANTED AT HARVEST to wield 12 and 20 foot extension-pole pruners and cut the burs out of seednut mother trees. We will need help on September 18, 20-24, 27-30 and October 1.  Meet at Forest Service Rd708, Newport, VA at 9 a.m; e-mail accf@direcway.com for directions. 

ACCF BREEDING
     In our quest for all-American chestnuts with high blight resistance, we start from original blight survivors with low levels of blight resistance.  By selecting the best blight-resistant individuals through successive generations of breeding, we aim to concentrate their blight resistance, to obtain the high level which is required for long-term survival within the American chestnut’Äôs natural range.  This is a classic breeding method.  It has been widely successful, creating many disease-resistant crops.

     With trees, it just takes longer.  A generation for American chestnuts is  8 to 10  years from controlled pollination to blight-resistance testing.  We have three breeding lines in their second generation; of these only (Ruth x Miles) may begin testing within a year or two.  Other 2004 controlled all-American intercrosses include (G4 x Fl), (BigM x G4), (Fl x JEB), (Th x JEB), (RgMt x JEB), (NCC x JEB),  (MtL x JEB), (MtL x Am), (Lo x Am) and (Lo x JEB).

     But what about the seedlings and seednuts from open pollination which you, our cooperating growers, are raising?  Thousands of these, planted within the natural range, are being field-tested by the ever-present blight.  Most may have some genes in common with our controlled intercrosses, as well as genes from dozens of other blight-resistant American chestnuts.  The best blight-resistant individuals to turn up among them are to be our source of diversity for the blight resistant American chestnut population.  Gary and John plan to visit your plantations as they mature to evaluate these American chestnuts.  We rely upon your reports to help identify the best American chestnuts from our distributions.  Pollen and scions from the very best among them will add the finishing touch to each ACCF breeding line.

COOPERATOR’ÄôS AGREEMENT
     We request all cooperating growers to sign, date and fill out the enclosed Cooperating Grower’Äôs Agreement form, in pledge of your commitment to our breeding program.  An additional document (posted on our Web site) will be required for orders of 100 or more seedlings or requests for larger than the usual  (15) seednut allotment.

LOWER SEEDLING COST
     The 2004 nursery cost for seedlings is $35 per 50 or fewer year-old, bare-root American chestnut seedlings.  This includes Priority mailing, where necessary, to most addresses East of the Mississippi.  Growers West of the Mississippi need to add $10 per 50 American chestnuts to cover a higher shipping cost.  Orders must be received on a Cooperating Grower’Äôs Agreement form.  We strongly advise those who cannot plant seedlings in winter to request seednuts instead.

     The nursery distribution schedule depends upon the weather.  American chestnuts must be fully dormant before lifting.  Also, the machinery cannot operate on very wet terrain.  Thus, the date when seedlings may be mailed is unknown until the last minute, and we are unable to promise delivery for a specific date.  In general, the chestnuts are lifted in the second half of November, processed and packed on a Saturday for mailing the following Monday.  All  growers should start now to prepare the holes and erect protection cages.  The ability to plant seedlings soon after they arrive correlates strongly with high transplant success.

PROTECTION CAGES are necessary to save your young American chestnuts from deer and rabbit depredations.  We prefer to make our cages from 2 x 4 inch grid, 4- and 5-foot tall weldwire (sometimes called dogwire).  You can cut 7 cages from a 50 foot roll.  When constructing cages, it is best to bend only 3 wires, with the middle wire bent in the opposite direction to the wires at the top and bottom.  This way, cages can be easily moved, as needed.  We use five-foot cages to protect the  leader of shorter seedlings and grafts; we change to 4-foot cages once the leader is 7 feet tall.  The strongest stakes for cages are 4-foot rebar, but half-inch conduit is lighter-weight for carrying into plots and also cheaper. Running  deer may crash into cages, destroying them, if they are not decorated with bright flagging. 

GROWERS’Äô REPORTS
     From nuts and seedlings I have planted over the past 20 years, I count 258 surviving American chestnuts.  Only 6 of these are big enough to take care of themselves.  The rest require regular attention through the growing season to keep them in full sun and free from the competition of other plants, to minimize insect damage, and nip all other problems at the bud.  My experience with setbacks, natural and unnatural disasters is the source for most of our recommendations to growers.  Thus, I read your reports with sympathy, I appreciate your efforts (often in spite of the evidence), and  I always hope to be able to help.

    As of 12/12/05, we have received 168 reports of 5,455 surviving ACCF chestnuts.  If yours is not among these, please send your report via our Web site or on the reverse side of your Cooperating Grower’Äôs Agreement form. Your numbers will be added the tally above.   Last winter, we sent out 2,737 seednuts and 8,595 seedlings to cooperating growers.

GRAFTING REPORT
     I have 36 new grafts, representing 30% success overall for 2004, but as usual, the results varied greatly among the different plots.  Many losses at the Airport and Scion Bank were caused by tiny ants colonizing the new grafts inside their shelters and eating the buds.  This might be avoided in the future by sprinkling Diazinon on the soil surrounding each graft.  Most other losses I attribute to bad luck in timing the graft:  on certain dates nearly everything grew, while during one whole week everything failed.  Thus, some plots had success higher than 60%, while others obtained less than 20%.  I have altogether 117 surviving grafts and Carl Mayfield has 92.  We look forward to your grafting reports and observations.

BLIGHT RESISTANCE TESTING  begins in May, when blight-free American chestnuts that are 1.5 inches in diameter at breast height can be inoculated with a known killing strain of the blight fungus.  Then, the following May we measure the size and depth of the blight canker and compare it against the standard developed by Gary Griffin.   About a dozen (Miles x Ruth) F2  grafts were large enough this year; but unfortunately, well before May, none were blight-free.  Keen to begin testing something, I chose Ed Greenwell’Äôs Nathan Pease nutgraft, although it was only one inch dbh.  We are looking forward to May 2005 results.

NWTF GRANT
     Many thanks to the National Wild Turkey Federation for very generous support of our project,  in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Forestry, USDA-Forest Service and Virginia Tech, to establish and test in forest plots ACCF all-American chestnuts.

     Last winter, the Blacksburg Ranger District cleared the area in the Jefferson National Forest which they had cut for the Pandapas plot to test a first generation intercross (Th x J).  We have marked 10 rows with 10 foot spacing down the mountainside in this east-facing cove.  We prepare each hole thus:  cut and pull roots, dig 18 inch hole, mix a tablespoon of Diazinon in the fill and replace it, push an 8 to 10 inch cylinder 2 to 3 inches down in the center of the planting place, install a tree mat (Forestry Suppliers, Inc.) and a staked, 5 -foot tall protection cage, hung with pink flagging to keep deer from crashing into cages.  Our yield from 2003 controlled pollinations was so disappointing,  we only had 12 nuts to plant (in the cylinders) here last winter.   Seven have survived, and we planted an additional row of volunteer seedlings, of which 8 survive.  These volunteers are from American chestnuts that are not blight resistant; we will use them for grafting stock to include the parent trees in the same plot with their progeny, for test purposes.   This past June and July, hoping for enough seed to fill out plantings this winter, we pollinated each flower 3 times at 5 day intervals, instead of the usual two times.

     In the Lesesne State Forest, Nelson County, in the area newly cleared by the VDF, we planted two and a half long rows by direct-seeding as above, with several different controlled intercrosses, F2 and  F1.  This new planting has 28(VT2 x G4), 21(NCC x J), 2(F x G4), 5(Ruth x F) and 2 Pacman.  Also surviving in the other parts of this plot from past years’Äô planting are 102(Miles x Ruth) and 12 additional F1 intercrosses.   From past years’Äô grafts 16 survive, along with 16 new grafts, mostly F2 but also some parent trees.  In May, we inoculated blight cankers on seven of the F2 grafts with hypovirulence.   In June, Gary applied Subdue fungicide drench in two areas where seedlings or grafts have died from a root rot.  We cannot increase the Lesesne plantings until the Phytophthora or other root-rot pathogen is under control.

     At Turkey Run we have 24 F2 grafts and 3 F2 seedlings.  We have inoculated the first blight cankers on six of these grafts.  Altogether, we now have 18 (Miles x Ruth) F2 grafts under integrated management:  blight-resistant all-Americans on  ideal sites managed for American chestnut, with their first blight cankers inoculated with select hypovirulent strains of the blight fungus.  Our largest F2 graft (20 ft) is at the Airport; it made 2 female flowers which we pollinated with JEB.

2004 OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS
Wayne Bowman of the Virginia Department of Forestry and Ed Leonard, Silviculturist of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, for invaluable cooperation and assistance in research plots.

Jenny, Lizzy & Lise Cooper, and Vicky Lewis for harvesting most of our 2003 seednuts.  They held the pruning poles last fall.

John Buschmann, for contributions too numerous to cite toward ACCF progress in the research at the Lesesne State Forest, and Frieda for pitching in with the dirty work.

Ken James, no relation to Jesse, for his work at Chestnut Hill.   In July, Gary and I visited Ken to look over his American chestnut restoration project.  He has 38 surviving grafts and 271 seedlings growing on ideal, rich chestnut land in the severe upstate NY climate.  This is a great test site.  To create his chestnut plots, he cut the big timber himself.  In addition to ACCF stock, his collection includes some good-looking  native NY chestnuts.  Considering the quality and scope of Ken’Äôs work at Chestnut Hill, we are amazed.

Carl Mayfield, for regular generous support of ACCF research, outstanding grafting and an extensive, well-documented American chestnut restoration project.

Violet Pesinkowski, for regular, very generous support of ACCF research.

Douglas Buege, for volunteer labor in ACCF research plots, carrying bales of weldwire, preparing terrain, cutting trees and weeds.


     By taking on the job of restoring American chestnuts in the forests, we accept a huge environmental challenge.  This year, we are pleased to welcome many new cooperating growers from the National Wild Turkey Federation.   We need as many hands as possible to make the long-term commitment and share the hard work.  Cutting trees, weeding, digging planting holes, constructing cages, driving stakes, planting or grafting, you may be tired, dirty and sweating, but nevertheless very happy to look upon your work and give thanks that you are still able to do this work.  The possibility of an American chestnut grove is worth it.
   
                                                                                                     Respectfully submitted,
                                                                                                     Lucille Griffin, Executive Director
Other ACCF Directors
Gary Griffin, President, Professor of Forest Pathology, Virginia Tech
Dave McCurdy, Vice-president,  Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, WV
John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Research Chemist, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord College, WV
William Pilkington, Treasurer,   Financial Advisor, Ghent, WV
Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, Cookeville, TN

Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts

Return to  the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation home page.


American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation
                2003 Newsletter
    

Dear Friends and Cooperating Growers:

NEW SEEDLING PRICE
     We are late figuring the seedling cost this year because we lost money on last year’Äôs distribution. Also, we have learned that most seedlings sent outside West Virginia are in the mails for as long as 2 weeks, even those going across the river to Ohio.  Seedlings now cost $40  per bundle of 50; for bundles of 25 or fewer, the cost is $23.
     We highly recommend that all growers who do not plan to pick up their seedlings (see below, Open House) and do not live in West Virginia consider requesting Priority mailing.  Priority costs an additional $10  per bundle.   When you write your check payable to ACCF,  please remember to add your contribution for 2003 ($20) to the research that supports these distributions.
     The nursery has designated only 4,500 seedlings for ACCF growers this year, so it is best to send your orders in early.

OPEN HOUSE
 1.    The West Virginia Forest Tree Nursery where they  harvest the nuts and then grow the American chestnut seedlings which we have been distributing since 1989, will hold an open house for ACCF growers on Saturday, December 6, from 10 to 12 a.m.
     The nursery is located about 10 miles north of Point Pleasant, WV, in Lakin, near the Ohio River, on Route 62.
     Please note in your order, if you plan to pick up your seedlings at that time.  We can send you a list of motels within a 10 mile radius of the nursery upon request.
     Come and meet Dave McCurdy, John Elkins, and (weather permitting) Ed Greenwell, ask questions and discuss your growing problems and solutions.
2.  The Airport Research Plot near Virginia Tech in Blacksburg is the place where we hold spring grafting lessons; there we are making another demonstration of integrated management for chestnut blight control.  We also have about 2 dozen tiny volunteer chestnut seedlings which may be dug up and taken home.  Lucille can meet you at 10 a.m. on November 8.  Please request directions to avoid being late to this open house. Security requires locking  the gate after entering.

PHYTOPHTHORA
     The first symptom of a Phytophthora infection is premature yellowing leaves, followed by browning leaves and then death of the stem.  When the seedling is dug up, a brownish-black decay is evident on the fine roots and the structural roots.  Unlike chestnut blight, Phytophthora offers no second chance because it kills the roots as well as the top.
     The ultimate defense is to plant in sandy, well-drained soils, avoid low-lying and flat land (unless the soil is sandy), and also, avoid old fields in the Piedmont.  In cases where the soils are ordinarily well-drained but are heavy in texture, unusually wet conditions can slow the drainage to create a Phytophthora problem.
      If the disease is diagnosed in its early stages, it can be controlled with a fungicide drench (Ridomil or Subdue) applied following the manufacturer’Äôs directions.  This is an expensive and labor-intensive solution which we recommend only where the planting site is ordinarily well-drained but held water longer than usual because of extremely heavy and frequent rains.
     If you have a Phytophthora problem: put the dead seedlings directly into garbage bags and send them to the landfill; seed the planting holes with grass to contain spread of the pathogen, and do not replant American chestnuts there, or nearby  downhill from the Phytophthora-infested area.

VOLES
     They make tunnels in field and forest, feeding on insect grubs, worms and roots, and like many other creatures they fancy American chestnuts.
     With no voles in the neighborhood, you can protect direct-seeded chestnuts with a tree shelter about 10 inches tall, driven two inches into the soil and staked in place.  The nut is planted no more than an inch down and covered with peat moss, and the shelter is surrounded by a 5 foot tall weldwire cage to protect against raccoon, rabbit and deer.
     Voles simply undermine this defense and eat the chestnut root as it emerges below the shelter barrier.  The control recommended for commercial orchards presumes an ability to visit the plot daily; if you may be able to do this, then contact your County Agent for help.  Other possible courses of action include planting daffodil bulbs (which are poison) in a wide circle around each chestnut and/or mixing ground glass around and below each chestnut. More vole control suggestions are most welcome.
       
 NWTF GRANT
    This year a National Wild Turkey Federation grant of $5,000 continues support for planting second generation all-Americans (F2s) and making grafts of them to test their blight resistance and to establish two seed orchards on public lands.
   For part of this project, we cooperate with the Virginia Department of Forestry  in the Lesesne State Forest.  In February, they cleared an additional acre or so to make more space for planting & grafting.  This past November and March, in last year’Äôs planting rows, we filled the empty places by direct-seeding. This September, I counted 112 F2 seedlings there, (Miles x Ruth) and (Ruth x Miles).  Although three of the seedlings are 6 foot tall and three are 5 foot tall, the majority grew very little this year because of intense weed competition (over 8 feet tall) and a non-lethal virus infection on the leaves. 
    The grafts of these F2s in several sites number 54, but they represent only 40 individuals, and of these it appears that only 5 may be large enough to begin blight resistance testing in May 2004, while the others will need at least one more growing season to reach the required diameter of 1.5 inches at breast height.
    The test for blight resistance includes inoculation with a  killing strain of the blight fungus, after which the canker growth is measured over a 2-year period.
    Our new seed orchards are under development in cooperation with the USDA-FS, Blacksburg Ranger District.  The Craigs Creek project now has 22 grafts and 5 seedlings, all from the same controlled pollination (above). While 7 of them are over 12 ft tall, we did not plan to use these grafts for resistance testing, but instead, to put them under integrated management as soon as they are naturally infected by blight.
    The final step in integrated management involves regularly checking for blight and inoculating the first blight cankers (on resistant individuals) with hypovirulent strains of the blight fungus selected from the research cultures at Virginia Tech. In May, we inoculated with hypovirulent strains the first three F2 grafts to be infected with blight, in 2 other test plots. 
    In our Poverty Creek project, the Forest Service has cut less than ¬‡ acre in a mesic, east-facing cove site where we shall begin direct-seeding this November to establish a new breeding line with different parent trees.

LARGE SURVIVORS
   Recently there has been a great deal of public interest in searching for additional American chestnuts which appear to have survived the blight and therefore might be useful to programs breeding for blight resistance.
    While this is a worthy project, our limited personnel and resources are fully employed and often working overtime.  We cannot take time off to check out a discovery unless the American chestnut is growing in heavy blight territory, not on the periphery of the natural range, in a forest setting, at an altitude over 3,000 feet, and it is over 10 inches in diameter at breast height with visible blight, but no serious crown damage.
    No doubt there are numerous survivors which miss the above description by only one or a few criteria and are therefore well worth the effort of saving the genes for future testing and breeding.  This could be done best by nutgrafting.  Those interested will find a detailed description of how to make nut grafts in Ed Greenwell’Äôs paper at:  http://www.accf-online.org/chestnut/nutgrafting.htm
   
GRAFTING REPORT
    This was a mediocre year for me.  I have  just 25 new grafts, including two that were made by Jenny Cooper.  Overall a total of 125 of my grafts survive on 9 different sites.   Carl Mayfield reports a total of 50 ACCF nutgrafts, which includes 30 new nutgrafts this year.
    Burnie & Essie Burnworth attended April grafting lessons and have reported 4 of their grafts at Stronghold, MD, are growing well.
    Grafting invitation:  learn chestnut-grafting techniques at Virginia Tech in April of 2004, by appointment on a morning of your choice.  This invitation is open to all growers who send an additional donation to support ACCF research.  Please respond  in February, suggest two dates (from which I could choose one) and indicate how many grafts you plan to attempt, so that we may have enough scionwood to share with you.
 
 GROWERS’Äô REPORT
     If you followed our recommendation to plant on well-drained sites, 2003 was a great growing year throughout the East.
     I have counted 191 survivors, and my tallest from a 2002 nut direct-seeded is 2 feet!  A few of my 2- and 3-year-olds have doubled their height.  While our Western growers hauled water, we pulled weeds and cut competing trees.  American chestnut seedlings hardly ever succeed without a good deal of work. 
    Ed’Äôs Nathan Pease American chestnut  is still looking good, but my graft of it will not be large enough to begin its blight-resistance test until 2005.
    Thanks very much for reporting!  We  have so far received reports from 114 growers of 4,166 ACCF chestnuts surviving in 2003. Sometimes I wonder if everyone understands that ’Äútotal of ACCF seedlings surviving’Äù means the grand total for all years plantings.  We accept additions and corrections.   Late  reports will be added to the above numbers as they are received..
    This past year we sent 7,627 seedlings and 6,917 seednuts to cooperating growers in 37 states and Ontario.

SEEDNUTS
    We are expecting a smaller crop of seednuts here in Virginia because of the very heavy and frequent rains during pollination time.   Each grower may request 15 nuts, but we will probably run out of seed earlier than we did last winter (January 21).
     I did not put many control bags in the Miles and Ruth grafts, thus many more of their open pollinated nuts may go out to our most reliable, reporting growers.
     Looking out our dining room window, I saw female flowers  in our Pie chestnut’Äôs crown.  In between rains, I tossed into its upper branches the catkins leftover from this year’Äôs controlled crosses. These father trees may give this year’Äôs Pie nuts many more interesting possibilities, so they also will go only to our growers who have reported.

HARRY HOTINE SCHOLARSHIP
      We have awarded the graduate student, Eric Hogan, a research scholarship in memory of my father, a self-educated man who knew and loved the trees, all the Latin as well as common names, and was a great believer in education and hard work.  With this scholarship we recognize Eric’Äôs contribution to American chestnut research through long hours of careful work in the laboratory.

OUTSTANDING COOPERATORS
     Many thanks again to John Buschmann, John Buschmann, Jr, and the Jones Family for pitching in and supporting our work in the Lesesne State Forest.

    Once again,Violet Pesinkowski (NY) and Carl Mayfield (VA) have been extremely generous in support of the graduate student research at Virginia Tech.

    Mark Depoy, Mammoth Cave National Park, (KY) was responsible for  planting 2,000 additional ACCF seedlings in our National Parks.

     Thanks to Jason Kramer for engaging Biology and Botany students at Yough High School in a large project, raising American chestnuts from seed, planting them on Pennsylvania State Game Land and sending us an A+ report.

    Thanks to John Knouse, who once again sponsored and manned an ACCF booth at an environmental fair in Athens, Ohio, we have many additional Ohio growers.  And Laurie Spangler set up an ACCF exhibit at the Mill Mountain Zoo near Roanoke, VA.

    Ken James (NY) continues his efforts to maintain and expand the largest American chestnut forest revival project outside Virginia. 

    Charles Lytton, (VA) Giles County 4-H Leader, continues work with area school children, organizing help for harvest at the Martin American Chestnut Planting, as well as  spring field trips to area chestnut-growing projects involving the children in planting, maintenance and reporting; he also distributes seednuts to school growing projects.
   
 
    We now have over 1,000 on the mailing list and look forward to news about all those American chestnuts.

                                                                                                Respectfully submitted,
                                                                                                Lucille Griffin, Executive Director

Other ACCF Directors
      Gary Griffin, President,  Virginia Tech Forest Pathology
       Dave McCurdy, Vice-president, Superintendent, Clements State Tree Nursery, WV
       John Rush Elkins, Secretary, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Concord College, Research Chemist, Beckley, WV
      William Pilkington, Treasurer, ChFC, Cool Ridge, WV
       Ed Greenwell, Director of Tennessee chestnut projects, Electrical Engineer, Cookeville, TN

Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts

American Chestnut Cooperators’Äô Foundation
  excerpt from the 2002 Newsletter
 
          

FOUNDING FATHERS
    Since the majority of you are new members, let us introduce two deceased founding fathers, Al Dietz and Bruce Given, West Virginians whose dedication to American Chestnut restoration made possible the Lesesne project and our breeding program for blight resistance.
Al was an industrial chemist; Bruce worked for the West Virginia Division of Forestry.  Well before the ACCF was founded, they were collecting American chestnuts, together and for separate projects.

    Al took large quantities of American chestnut seed to be irradiated, with the hope of inducing mutations favorable to blight resistance.  He made plantations of these seedlings in cooperation with landowners throughout the East.  The Lesesne is his largest plantation; the Virginia Tech airport plot is among his smallest.  Stronghold, Inc. in Maryland, a new 2002 ACCF member, is also a legacy of Al Dietz.  We were able to test very few of his trees (all at the Virginia Tech airport, but just a small number at the Lesesne) for blight resistance and found only a few at the Lesesne with low levels of blight resistance.

    Al also discovered the Gault chestnut in Ohio, a grandparent on both sides of our F2 cross, Miles x Ruth, with the best chance right now to breed true for blight resistance.

    Bruce Given was most interested in finding American chestnuts with possible blight resistance and grafting them into Chinese chestnut stocks to make all-American chestnut breeding possible and to assemble an American chestnut collection at a West Virginia tree nursery.  Because of his nursery collections, we can distribute American chestnut seedlings at cost to our members.  Bruce spent years refining bark grafting techniques, especially for American chestnut replication; his work made our all-American chestnut breeding program possible.

    Bruce grafted the blight-resistant chestnuts (1980) in the Lesesne, into the stocks of some of Al’Äôs trees which were blight-susceptible; he make the big chestnut grafts which have become the first demonstration within the natural range of a high level of chestnut blight control.  Bruce taught John Elkins to graft chestnuts, and John taught me.  We are fortunate to follow in their footsteps.



Dedicated to the restoration of American chestnuts

              
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