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Permsteading.com • View topic - Found What I Believe is a Native American Chestnut Today

Found What I Believe is a Native American Chestnut Today

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Found What I Believe is a Native American Chestnut Today

Postby George Collins » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:50 am

After the morning squirrel hunting trip (got 6), I met with the neighbor that has the new forest garden. He wanted a tour to see the new additions to Toy Ridge Farms. We talked about acorn fattened pork as he has been thinking along those lines. We drive to visit a large parcel of family land. While there, we were walking into a low area when he mentioned that the entirety of their acreage "is good sandy soil."

The words "sandy soil" as of late always prompts mt to think about chestnuts because research into growing chestnuts of all types reveals that clay soils are a short path to the death of a chestnut tree. As we were walking along, he led me through an area where I had to move limbs out of the way to pass. As I moved this one particular limb, the toothiness of the leaf caught me eye. I thought, "Man, that sure looks like an Americsn chestnut.". My eyes followed the limb proximally and the bark of the limb caught my eye next. It looked just like the bark from the chestnuts growing in the test plots we visited at Virginia Tech.

Knowing the human propensity for seeing what we want to see, and since I would love to find the Southernmost specimen of the American chestnut tree still in existence, I began trying to turn the find into something other than a chestnut. However, the more attempts made to rule out a chestnut merely increased my confidence that this was, in fact, truly a pure American chestnut.

One of the things that impressed me about the chestnut trees at Virginia Tech was the sheer size of the leaves. They were massive when compared to chinquapin leaves and appreciably larger than Chinese chestnuts. Does this qualify as a massive leaf:

Image

Here is the video made while on scene:

I can't say for sure if this is an American chestnut but I sure do hope it is. I forwarded the above video and picture on to the president of The Alabama chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation. He will also be receiving a leaf/twig sample in the mail in the next few days.

We plan to return to the area tomorrow to see if there are any other specimens that we might find. I would have loved to have looked around for the rest of the day but I had left the kids home alone as we had only planned to be gone for a very few minutes.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"

"If you can't beat them, bite them."
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Re: Found What I Believe is a Native American Chestnut Today

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:58 am

That is GREAT George! I hope that it turns out to be a true american chestnut. There have been several trees found all around the country that were either missed by the blight, or were some how blight resistant. The Pennsylvania Game Commission claims that there is one in a hollow on the Game Lands next to my cabin. I have never really looked for it. I know which hollow they claim it is located in, I just do not know where. We used to be Game Lands #93, but after 9-11 they took that number and re-numbered the game lands near Sykesville #93. Hard to be upset about that, I think it is appropriate. I think we are now game lands #1093, :D But the Chestnut tree is still in our hunting area of Clearfield County. Since they bloom so much in the spring I may have to go look for it them, it should stand out from the crowd. :lol:
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Re: Found What I Believe is a Native American Chestnut Today

Postby GrahamB » Mon Oct 22, 2012 2:28 am

We went to a swap meet yesterday and at one stall was an elderly lady with the largest collection of wood planes and chisels I have seen. But what drew my attention was a wooden box full of what I know as Horse Chestnuts or conkers. As boys we used to play the game of conkers in the school yard. We would drill a hole through them, them thread a shoelace through and knot it. The idea was to face your opponent and one of you would hang the conker from the lace whole the other one took a swipe at it with his conker. Then the roles were reversed. The one that could break the other one's conker was the winner.
I was admiring them and then noticed the label on the box. Buckeyes. I had heard the name before but never realized they were one and the same. So George, it seems we have both found our chestnut. I had made myself the rule that I wouldn't grow anything on my land that wasn't native, so now I can have conkers with a clear conscience.
I hope your tree is a chestnut, and that you can somehow propagate from it. It would be a great legacy to leave your kids that their family rescued the American Chestnut in the locality.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
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Re: Found What I Believe is a Native American Chestnut Today

Postby George Collins » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:18 am

False alram y'all.

We returned to the area yesterday in an attempt to locate other specimens. While doing so, we revisited the two trees we found on the day previous. Scouring the ground about the trees produced two burrs that prove beyond any reasonable doubt that these trees (and several more we found growing in the area) are in fact chinquapins.

Prior to this find, I had found only one chinquapin. I have visited that tree many times and for the past two years have gathered nuts from it in hopes of propagating them into my hog-food forest. The trees we found this past Saturday were very dissimilar both in bark character and leaf size. I was ready to bet the farm on these trees being chestnuts but when I found those two burrs, which were obviously from a previous year's crop, I am now 100% certain that I was wrong.

There is one redeeming factor to all this: by finding the chinquapins, we were able to identify a possible future planting site for chestnuts since they prefer the same type of soil.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"

"If you can't beat them, bite them."
George Collins
 
Posts: 535
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:57 pm
Location: South Central Mississippi, Zone 8a

Re: Found What I Believe is a Native American Chestnut Today

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Tue Oct 23, 2012 2:48 am

The more we learn the more we grow as people. Knowledge is power. Now you know that you have a good potential spot for growing chestnuts in the future. Here in Pa Gary Alt was in charge of the Deer program for awhile, until he was forced out. He felt that re-introducing the American Chestnut back into our woods was the biggest single thing we could do to help the wild life in our state prosper. I truely hope that the nuts that you have will grow and be blight resistive for you. That is the key, being able to keep growing after 20 years when the blight really sets in on the tree. I am hopefully waiting to see what will happen with the newest hybred tree that they have started to grow now. The Chestnut Society feels that they have developed the answer, the American Chestnut hydred that is truely blight resistive and will be able to repopulate the country with this wonderful tree. Unfortunately it will take another 15 to 20 years befor they really know. A Friend of mine planted American Chestnuts that Mussers Nursery here in Pa sells from a tree in Michigan that was not killed by the blight. It has now been about 20 years since he planted them and he told me that they are showing signs of the blight. They may be producing some nuts now, but for how long? That to me is the question. You said that the nuts you were given show good progress toward being blight resistive. Even if only 10% of your 100 trees make it and live through the blight you have a Big Win in my opinion. We are getting close, and I truely hope that we have the answer to the Chestnut blight in our hands today. Time will tell the story.
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