Aliens & Pests

Ohio has begun planting American chestnut on surface mines in the eastern part of the state. The project is part of the American Chestnut Foundation's effort to restore chestnut to its former glory, uses blight-resistant hybrids of American and Chinese Chestnut. The breeding project, expected to take at least 100 years, mates American chesnuts with Chinese chestnuts and selects resistant progeny. These will then be backcrossed through consecutive generations to select for trees with nearly pure American chestnut characters and genes, but with the blight resistance of Chinese chestnut.  The project is led by Brian McCarthy, a forest biologist at Ohio University.

American chestnut was once the dominant species in mid-slope Appalachian forests. They accounted for up to 70% of the stocking (basal area of all the trees) in these forests. Chestnuts produce starchy nuts rich in protein and fat and were an important food resource for wildlife, and for people and their livestock. The tree was wiped out by an epidemic of chestnut blight, caused by the fungus Endothia parasitica. The blight killed billions of trees in only a few years as it swept down the Applachians.  My friend Junior Marshall recalls that one year at Robinson Forest the fall colors of the chestnut were magnificent and the following year (1939), they were all dead.

Surface mines may seem an odd place to plant chestnuts. However, they appear to do well in some mine sites. I have found American chestnut on mine spoils in eastern Kentucky.