Are these "new varieties" of chestnut trees crosses between Chinese chestnut and American chestnut, or varieties of Chinese chestnut?
We should probably check with the American Chestnut Foundation, also.
Donn
Forum rules
Be kind. No government, state, or local politics allowed. Admin has final decision for any/all removed posts.
Be kind. No government, state, or local politics allowed. Admin has final decision for any/all removed posts.
-
Donn
- 6 valves
- Posts: 5977
- Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2005 3:58 pm
- Location: Seattle, ☯
Re: Donn
Alas, my knowledge is nil on this nut. It's an interesting story, though, obviously a tree a lot of people missed when they were wiped out. This from http://oak.ppws.vt.edu/~griffin/accf.html:
It looks to me like most of Tennessee falls within the former extent of the American chestnut, and indeed they're supposed to be fast growing if they survive the blight. 100 foot wide crowns when they're in the open. That's just a mature tree. There was a tree in England that was said to have been 197 yards across, though I doubt the American goes as wide as that.
On the other hand, there are other species - Spanish, Chinese, etc. - and that's what I guess people have been planting. Don't know how well they do - the Chinese chestnuts in our yard did poorly, I know that!
That's just blight, then there's mildew and other afflictions.American Chestnut Cooperator's Foundation wrote: ACCF chestnuts are all-Americans from open pollination in several Virginia and West Virginia plantings. The mother trees are blight resistant, but this characteristic may be inherited by perhaps 10% of their offspring. More generations of breeding are necessary to produce American chestnuts with blight resistance that is regularly inheritable. Meanwhile, from the first very small sample of F2 progeny of Ruth and Miles which are over 1.5 inches dbh and have their first blight cankers, it appears that in the second generation we may expect at least 25% in this breeding line to inherit blight resistance. In the past few years, the maturing of many grafts of original blight survivors, as well as selected F1 and F2 progeny, and regular cutting of those chestnuts in our breeding plots which do not pass durable blight resistance tests has greatly improved the quantity of nuts with improved blight-resistance expectations which we can distribute to our growers. When ACCF stock is planted within the area infested by blight, natural selection will reveal the resistant individuals; scions from these can then be grafted into the new shoots on chestnuts killed by blight.
It looks to me like most of Tennessee falls within the former extent of the American chestnut, and indeed they're supposed to be fast growing if they survive the blight. 100 foot wide crowns when they're in the open. That's just a mature tree. There was a tree in England that was said to have been 197 yards across, though I doubt the American goes as wide as that.
On the other hand, there are other species - Spanish, Chinese, etc. - and that's what I guess people have been planting. Don't know how well they do - the Chinese chestnuts in our yard did poorly, I know that!