American Chestnut Making a Comeback?!?

[roadrunner]

This is interesting and it may be indicative of the American Chestnut tree making a comeback.

 

[Meadowlark]

Nature finds a way.

 

[YumYum]

I always heard they went extinct but doubted it myself. I've always figured there were some in the woods that made it through the blight. Another thing that can help them are wildfires that seem to go back in time and sprout things in the soil that have been there for generations.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Another thing that can help them are wildfires

Some seeds lie dormant until there is a fire to trigger them. It's a strategy that makes sure the opposition has been eliminated and turned into ash fertilizer.

 

[YumYum]

Some seeds lie dormant until there is a fire to trigger them. It's a strategy that makes sure the opposition has been eliminated and turned into ash fertilizer.

I've seen it personally with the Gatlinburg wildfires that came and passed. You wouldn't believe how green the ground is after things started to grow again and really after a short amount of time passed.

I'm sure people in CA or TX have too.

 

[nemodot]

I've heard there are plenty of assays in place to get a disease resistant chestnut, one involving a cross with an european chestnut and then lots and lots of crosses with american chestnuts to preserve the resistant mutations and clean the european background.
There's that and also direct gene modification. Both are pretty promising.

 

[roadrunner]

Yeah, there have been several attempts at introducing hybrid Chestnut trees back into forests, but I don't know of the current status of any of these programs.

However, what I like about the video in the OP is that those Chestnut trees are non-hybridized American Chestnut trees that seem to be adapting in a way that provides immunity from Chestnut blight.

I also found it interesting that apparently the root system of a Chestnut that succumb to the blight can send up Suckers, which are free of the blight. I do wonder if those trees (or any %) develop an immunity from the blight.

 

[nemodot]

 

[Meadowlark]

Interesting that according to the above video, the blight was first introduced from Japanese nursery stock which is resistant to the blight.

 

[yardiron]

There are some old, survivors being found hidden in the woods all over, I don't think the blight killed them all and some did survive.
I had one on my property in PA that was over 3ft wide at its base in 2003 when I moved. It had been identified as an American chestnut in 1999. We has two, but we lost one in a huge storm in 1999. The one that toppled was even larger, but a week of rain, high winds, and a tornado laid it over into the woods. It actually looked like if we could have stood it back up it may have survived but its location and shear size ruled that idea out.
I ended up making a deal with a local wood worker who had a bandsaw mill, I took about 1/3 of the finished lumber after milling, I still have most of it waiting for the right project.
There's a farm near here that has a few old trees and a good size stand of hybrids they grow for the nuts.