Anglers bemoan the scourge of Asian carp — silver and bighead carp — fouling our rivers and lakes at the expense of bass, crappie, striped bass, walleye and other game fish.
Land managers spend thousands of dollars and man hours eradicating Asian Bush Honeysuckle, which forms dense thickets in forest understories, shading out, and out-competing native vegetation, posing a threat not only to the diversity of ecosystems that are invaded, but to forest regeneration itself.
A walk in the woods during the spring green up is filled with sadness at the sight of so many dead ash trees, killed by the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), a green, beetle that arrived in the U.S. on solid wood packing material carried in cargo ships or airplanes originating from Asia. Some botanists believe EAB could eventually kill 8.7 billion ash trees on the continent.
And there are other egregious Asian organisms, deadly and invasive, impacting native plant and animal life in North America today.
The American chestnut produces a big crop of nuts annually, encased in spiny burrs. Typically three nuts are enclosed in each spiny, green burr. The nuts develop through late summer, with the burrs opening and falling to the ground near the first frost of fall. (Photo Provided)
A Giant in Eastern Forests
The American chestnut (Castanea dentata), a large member of the beech family, once dominated eastern forests.
Growing to almost 100 feet tall with a diameter of nearly 10 feet, the American chestnut towered over eastern forests. Its wood is straight-grained, strong, easy to saw and split, and rot-resistant.
Penn State University researchers estimated that in Pennsylvania alone, American chestnut trees comprised 25 to 30 percent of all hardwoods.
Its geographic range extended from Maine and southern Ontario, down the Atlantic coast, Appalachian mountains and Ohio Valley, as far south as northern Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
Bounty of Mast
Its bounty of mast was unsurpassed by any other tree species.
American chestnut trees grow rapidly, and begin producing a large nut crop at seven to eight years of age. By comparison, it takes an oak tree 25 years to begin producing acorns, and some species do not produced nuts every fall.
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The American chestnut produces a big crop of nuts annually, encased in spiny burrs. Typically three nuts are enclosed in each spiny, green burr. The nuts develop through late summer, with the burrs opening and falling to the ground near the first frost of fall.
Their distinctive sawtooth leaves contain more nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium than other deciduous trees so that when American chestnut leaves drop, more nutrients are returned to the soil, which benefits other plants and animals.
The large nuts of the American chestnut were consumed by the now extinct eastern elk, white-tailed deer, wild turkey, black bears, squirrels, and many other species of forest wildlife.
The loss of the American chestnut tree was devastating to wildlife populations and the timing could not have been worse, because it came at a time when Appalachia’s forests were being mercilessly logged.
Blight-Resistant Trees
Since the 1980s several organizations have been studying the chestnut blight and attempting to breed blight-resistant trees by various methods.
A story posted on the Penn State University’s Department of Ecosystem Science and Management said that progress is being made in producing an American chestnut tree that can defend itself from the Asian bark fungus.
This was accomplished by inserting a gene from wheat into the American chestnut genome. The gene produces an enzyme that detoxifies oxalic acid. The oxalate oxidase enzyme is an extremely common fungal defense in plants, found in strawberries, bananas, oats, barley and other cereals.
The blight resistance gene is passed down to the tree’s offspring to provide subsequent generations with full blight resistance. Researchers hope that blight-resistant trees may be available to the public by 2022.
The return of the American chestnut would add another key piece to Appalachia’s rich ecological tapestry and benefit forest wildlife populations in Kentucky, and across the eastern United States.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for NKyTribune and KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.
