Researchers hope to give the American chestnut a leg up on climate change

[Jilly_in_VA]

As the earth warms and the precipitation patterns change, trees are expected to migrate north seeking weather they are adapted to. Scientists project trees will need to move faster than their natural abilities through seed spreading.

That’s led some scientists at the University of Vermont to try to jumpstart this process for an already beleaguered tree: the American chestnut.

“We're simultaneously trying to restore the chestnut in our experiment, as well as testing how well it will perform in a future environment if moved a bit farther north,” said Peter Clark, the study’s lead researcher.

After a blight fungus decimated American chestnut trees across the eastern U.S. in the mid-20th century, dedicated naturalists have kept the species alive by breeding hybrids of the American chestnut with the Chinese chestnut.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/11/14/research-american-chestnut-tree-climate-change

Now can we have more whining about how this isn't the "original" tree, a la the bison thread?

[Wicked Blue]

1. We planted a pair of hybrid chestnut trees in our yard some years ago

We got them as sticks from the Arbor Day Foundation. We hoped planting them would help with the effort to revive chestnut forests.

The first few years we had to protect them from deer and squirrels. The deer ate the leader trunk on one, but it survived. Now one tree is fairly tall, while the damaged one has mostly horizontal branches.

They began producing chestnuts a few years ago, but we've never eaten one. The squirrels get them all and scatter the painfully spiky husks around the yard. Squirrels also eat the bark on the branches, killing one branch after another. The dead branches break off and fall.

If I had to do it over, I would never have planted them.

[Kaleva]

2. I've been thinking of planting Paw Paw trees here where I live in zone 4

They may not be able to set fruit now but as the average global temp rises and if the predicted lengthening and warning of the growing season happens, they may be able to later.

[NickB79]

6. Pawpaws are ripening fruit 45 miles south of Minneapolis , zone 4b

My friend Richard has 30 trees in his backyard. He's gotten good crops the last few years now. I have 25 seedlings from his fruits, along with a dozen trees from a Chicago seed source. Mine are still a few years from fruiting. He was just in the latest issue of Northern Gardener magazine for them.

Funny story: I met him because I saw pawpaws in his yard while walking my dog, did a double take, and just ran up and knocked on his door as a complete stranger excited about pawpaws 🤣

[Kaleva]

8. That's encouraging news!

[republianmushroom]

3. LIKE

[Hortensis]

4. :) Like also. I'm sorry Wicked Blue's chestnuts haven't done well,

but they were pioneers. We did not plant hybrids some years ago because of reports from those who'd boldly gone before and knowing more hybridization would be done.

[Deep State Witch]

5. There have been a couple of "original" trees found

One most recently in Delaware. I think there's another one in NC. I know that biologists have mixed feelings about the hybridized American Chestnut trees, but I'm all for it. Bring back the King of the Forest!

[NickB79]

7. I've got 20 hybrid chestnuts on my land in southern Minnesota

Right now they're all hybrids to varying degrees of American, Chinese, Japanese and European species, as well as dozens of Allegheny chinkapin (a shrub chestnut species), but as soon as the SUNY Darling 58 transgenic chestnut lineage is approved by the FDA, I'm going to try to get a few as well. The hybrids are borderline up here with our winters; I started with several hundred seeds to arrive at 20 trees that can survive -30F, the majority having too much dieback. My oldest is 10 yr and finally grew a few nuts this year.

The U of MN had several pure Americans, but they are either dead or infected with blight. The last one had burrs this fall when I checked, but without a pollinator they were devoid of nuts.

If they're looking at chestnuts in Vermont, Perfect Circle Farm in Vermont is already growing a wide variety of chestnuts.

[NutmegYankee]

9. Darling 58 is my vote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/08/30/american-chestnut-blight-gene-editing/

The American Chestnut Foundation is 100% behind this effort.