The forests that cover most of the eastern United States are not the same forests our ancestors lived in 200 years ago.
Clearing of forest land for agriculture, harvesting of timber for various purposes, suppression of naturally occurring fire, and planting of monocultures are all forces that have reshaped and created the forests that now exist here. One of the most negative and devastating factors influencing the mix of trees in our current forests has been the accidental introduction of exotic pests and diseases.
One tree that has virtually disappeared from the eastern forest due to an accidentally introduced fungus is the American chestnut.
Before the first Europeans arrived in the New World, the tree that would come to be called the American chestnut ranged from Maine to Georgia, with a few trees even growing in Florida.
In Georgia, chestnuts were most common in the mountains, but could be found deep into the Piedmont region around Pine Mountain, and even into the Coastal Plain in southwest Georgia near the Chattahoochee River.
American chestnuts were large trees, often reaching 100 feet in height. Mature trees could have trunks four to five feet in diameter, with even larger trees recorded. In the Appalachians, as much as 25 percent of the forest canopy was comprised of chestnuts. Often whole ridge tops were pure stands of chestnut trees.
In the fall, chestnuts would ripen, and a variety of animals would compete for the nutrient-rich nuts, including black bears, deer, turkeys and many small animals, including the now extinct passenger pigeon. Humans were also fond of the nuts, especially at Christmas, and tons of chestnuts were shipped to big cities, aiding rural economies and upholding urban Christmas traditions.
The American chestnut was also a valuable timber tree. The wood was light, easily fashioned and popular, as well as extremely durable and rot resistant.
Old chestnut fence posts still can be found today. A variety of products were manufactured using chestnut wood, from crude telegraph poles to fine musical instruments.
But all of that is no more.
An Asian fungus, first noticed in the vicinity of New York in 1904, was inadvertently introduced into this country, probably on imported lumber, and began to kill American chestnuts. The trees died by the thousands, slowly, but steadily spreading throughout the chestnut's range, until by 1950 only a handful of pitiful trees were left.
The King of the Eastern Forest is now a mere pauper, existing mostly as stump sprouts that live a few years, then succumb to the fungus that we now call the chestnut blight.
There is a glimmer of hope for the chestnut. In 1983, a group of concerned scientists formed the American Chestnut Foundation, an organization dedicated to the task of developing blight resistant American chestnuts and restoring this tree to its former prominence in the eastern forests.
Somewhat simplified, their main focus involves finding mature American chestnuts and cross-pollinating them with Chinese chestnuts, which are resistant to the chestnut blight. The resultant hybrid seedlings are then carefully watched for disease resistance. Those trees that exhibit some degree of resistance to the blight fungus are then back-crossed with American chestnut pollen.
The process continues, ever so slowly, until chestnuts are developed that are fifteen-sixteenths American chestnut and one-sixteenth Chinese chestnut. Hopefully by that point the trees will be indistinguishable from pure American chestnuts and have all of the significant characteristics, including the tastier nuts, of the American species.
Close to home, the Georgia Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation is fighting the good fight. This past May, Nathan Klaus, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, found a mature American chestnut on Pine Mountain in Harris County.
The tree was subsequently hand-pollinated by members of the Georgia Chapter. Fifty-seven nuts were collected from that tree this fall. Those nuts will be used to eventually develop a Deep South variety of resistant American chestnut.
One of the problems facing the Georgia Chapter is locating "mother trees" - chestnuts that have lived long enough to flower and set seed.
Klaus has since found two more mature trees in the Pine Mountain region, and there are 20 or so trees scattered around the state that are being monitored, hand-pollinated and nuts collected for breeding. More trees are needed.
If you know of a mature American chestnut, want to know more about the American Chestnut Foundation or would like to support their efforts, the Georgia Chapter has a Web site - www.gatacf.org.
The site has information about identifying American chestnuts, the history of the chestnut blight, efforts to restore the chestnut in Georgia, and even links to things like chestnut recipes.
Hopefully, the efforts of those working hard to develop blight-resistant American chestnuts will pay off and we will all be able to find them in nurseries one day soon.
The American Chestnut Foundation hopes to have resistant trees available within the next few years, but it may take 100 years before enough trees, with enough genetic variation, can be produced to start major reforestation efforts throughout the eastern United States.
I look forward to the day that I can dig the hole for my garden's first American chestnut. It will be a small act in the bigger picture, but it will be a good start.Macon Telegraph
