Once King of the Forest

By Veronica Burns
The demise of the American elm from village greens and town streets registered more with the public than the demise of the American chestnut. The chestnut was located in the woods of rural America and its disappearance was noted mostly by rural communities, where livelihoods depended on the hardwood tree.

A dead chestnut tree at Anton Forest ready fro core testing.

In the early twentieth century, the American chestnut encountered a formidable foe in the form of a fungus that was imported from Asia. By the mid 1920s, this blight had worked its way, dispersed by air, rain and animals, through the Atlantic seaboard, destroying millions of trees. In its wake, it left only dead and dying stems. By 1950, except for the shrubby root sprouts the species continually produces, but which also quickly become infected, the species that had once covered 188 million acres of eastern forests had disappeared.
Efforts are underway however, to restore this tree to our woodlands. This is the stated mission of the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) and the Connecticut Chapter of TACF is working with Great Mountain Forest and Aton Forest in its restoration endeavors.
John Anderson, executive director at Aton Forest, says that Dr. Fred Paillet, a geologist and chestnut expert from the University of Arkansas, initiated their research. Paillet knew Aton Forest founder, Dr. Frank Egler, and wanted to extend earlier research he had carried out at Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA. Paillet noticed that chestnut sprouts were holding their own at Harvard Forest, but were disappearing at Aton Forest and he wondered, why the difference?
Through a grant obtained by TACF, Christine Cadigan, a Duke University intern, began work with Paillet. Two sites were established and information, such as location of dead chestnut trees, sizes and core data have been recorded. “Our research,” says Anderson, “is related to the ecology of the tree. It’s really a forensic science since we are dealing with dead trees.”
By contrast, at Great Mountain Forest, they are dealing with live trees. A seed orchard was set up there in 2007, with the purpose of breeding an American chestnut tree that will be highly resistant to blight and will be restored to Connecticut. This is achieved through a series of backcross and intercross breeding with disease-resistant Chinese and Japanese trees. There are currently 300 saplings at Great Mountain Forest.
The work at Aton Forest is presently on hold while they actively seek another student willing to take on the research as a thesis project. “It’s important to continue,” says Anderson. “There is so much rot appearing now on our dead wood samples that we need to record the data or it will be lost forever. We need to know the optimal conditions in order to reintroduce the chestnut into the wild and that’s what we are working on.”
Perhaps an added incentive for such research might be found in the fact that the chestnut tree is considered a viable candidate to help offset carbon levels. A study in 2005, led by Purdue University professor Douglass Jacobs, suggested that “fast-growing species like American chestnut will be of great use to help mitigate accelerated global warming through the uptake and storage of carbon.”
For more information, visit www.tcaf.org, www.atonforest.org and www.greatmountainforest.org.

Photo By John Anderson