American Chestnut is Making a Comeback
The American chestnut was a magnificent tree which mainly resided on the east coast of America, dominating forests from Maine to Georgia. It grew to over 100ft and most had a diameter of up to 5ft. These trees were massive and incredibly popular.
They were strong, growing with a straight grain and were rot resistant. This meant they were perfect for making almost anything from railway sleepers to furniture. The American chestnut also provided an excellent food source for both humans and wildlife, producing a yearly crop of lovely brown chestnuts.
In the late 1800’s Americans introduced a new species of chestnut tree, the Asian chestnut. This was a big mistake as these trees carried a disease called Cryphonectria parasitica or chestnut blight, which would soon almost wipe out the good old American chestnut.
Unfortunately the American chestnut has been hit hard by blight in the past 100 years and is almost extinct. Blight spreads easily and very quickly, simply on the wind or by small animals. Also Oak trees, which are not affected by the disease, can act as carriers. The disease gets into the natural cracks in the American chestnut and spreads around the tree, the tree then dies from there up.
The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF), which was set up in 1983 is now working hard to bring the tree back. They are hoping to breed a blight resistant strain which will have the same attributes as the original American chestnut. The goal of the breeding program is to combine the blight resistance of the Asian chestnut with the desirable characteristics of the American chestnut.
Hopefully the cross pollination breeding program will work and American chestnut trees will once again dominate the East coast of America.
Tags: American chestnut, Asian chestnut, Blight, extinct, Forest
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 11:22 am and is filed under Environment, trees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.