The American Chestnut Tree Seminar

One hundred years ago, the American chestnut was the dominant tree in the eastern United States. It was a huge, majestic tree, with a very straight trunk. Its wood was durable, and its nuts were a food source for humans and wildlife. In the first forty years of the 20th century, blight destroyed 3.5 billion American chestnut trees. What had been the most important tree in our Eastern forest was reduced to insignificance. No comparable devastation of a species exists in recorded history.

Chestnut blight is caused by a fungus which entered the US on Asian nursery stock imported to New York around 1900. The fungus spread rapidly southward, killing almost all of the American chestnut trees in the Appalachian region. The fungus attacks stems of any size, but often leaves the roots viable. By 1950, American chestnuts were virtually wiped out of their native range. Now, only rare sprouts from old roots systems remain.

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in developing a fungus resistant variety. Our speaker, Dr. Joe James, will discuss The American Chestnut Foundation's backcross breeding program. This program took Chinese chestnut trees, naturally resistant to the blight, and crossed them with their American cousins, resulting in trees that were 50% American, 50% Chinese. These trees were then backcrossed to the American species, resulting in trees which were 75% American. The procedure was repeated until currently, the most advanced trees have at least 94% American genes. The purpose is to produce an American chestnut tree that retains no Chinese characteristics other than blight resistance. This informative seminar will report on this progress and the possibilities of reintroducing the American chestnut tree into our local environment.

Dr. James is a retired orthopedic surgeon from Seneca, South Carolina. He first got interested in chestnut trees when as a boy his family would walk through the woods. "My father would tell me how magnificent the trees were and how great the chestnuts were to eat." On his 250 acre farm, "Chestnut Return," Dr. James and other researchers are backcrossing the American chestnut with a blight resistant Chinese chestnut. In addition, he is currently involved with phytophthora experimentation and with the rooting of chestnut seedlings. Dr. James is on the board of directors, and a past president of the Carolinas Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, whose goal is to restore the American chestnut tree into its native range within the woodlands of the eastern United States.

Program details: DATE: Friday, January 25, 2008. TIME: Program is 10 to 11:45 am. Doors open at 9 am. LOCATION: The auditorium of the Georgia Mountain Research & Education Center, 3 miles south of Blairsville on Hwy 19/129 south. FEE: This is a FREE seminar. Seating is limited, doors open at 9 am. CONTACT: (706) 745-2655, or www.gmrec.uga.edu.