Chemical Control: Recent success has been had with the use of Agrifos (phosphorous acid) and Pentrabark (a systemic surfactant) to treat chestnut blight.Add water at the top once or twice if it dries out. The method: make a black plastic sleeve to fit around the trunk, secure it with weatherproof tape, fill with at least two inches of moist soil, and leave in place for two months. It is also not a preventive treatment, but can address individual cankers which might otherwise kill the trunk. ![]() Wayne Weidlich, an ACF Director, has noted that by packing soil over trunk cankers, the blight might “suffocate.” It apparently works, but only for trees under 40 feet tall. Soil Compress Method: (also called " mudpacking") Dr.According to Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, these methods are showing some success: If you've got sick American Chestnuts of your own, there may be some hope. Stark Bro’s now offers several hybrid chestnut trees to enjoy in your landscape without risk of contracting chestnut blight. One of these hybrids, with 2% Chinese Chestnut DNA, was planted on the White House lawn several years ago. In 2009, The American Chestnut Foundation (ACF) began planting hybrid trees that naturally back-crossed the blight-resistant Chinese Chestnut into American Chestnut. Several organizations are actually trying to breed the blight out of existence. The fungus likes Northern red oak as a host, and while the oak ignores it, any nearby American Chestnuts will quickly attract it. dentata for more than a decade in its native Eastern U. At present, it is believed that survival of C. You can still find scattered stands of healthy American Chestnuts in places where the climate is cooler, like the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and the northern area of Michigan’s lower peninsula. ![]() New shoots will sprout from the roots when the main trunk dies, but the shoots rarely grow more than 20 feet high before the blight comes back again. The disease is recognizable by its bark lesions, which eventually girdle the trunk and kill the tree. Hot, humid weather is required for the blight to take hold. "Devastation" is not an overstatement: today, the number of American Chestnuts trees east of the Mississippi with a diameter larger than two feet is now less than 100. Mistakes were made in attempting to manage the blight loggers destroyed resistant trees in an effort to stop the blight spread, depriving them of the chance to reproduce healthy stock. The spread of the blight resulted in billions in crop and lumber losses, as well as a decline in wildlife populations that fed off the nuts. It particularly devastated trees in the Appalachian region, where up to 25% of the trees were American Chestnuts. It spread 50 miles a year, and, within a few decades, had killed nearly three billion chestnut trees. The airborne blight was spread by downward winds. The disease was first documented in 1904 on trees in the Bronx Zoo. ![]() While the Chinese variety adapted and developed a sturdy resistance to the blight, the American chestnut was no match for it. ![]() So, what happened to them? Chestnut Blight Chestnut Blight: A Devastating Fungal Disease.Ĭhestnut decline, attributed to blight, is caused by an Asian bark fungus ( Cryphonectria parasitica), which was unknowingly imported from Asia on infected Chinese Chestnut trees. The American chestnut tree ( Castanea dentata) used to be one of the most common - and important - trees in the Eastern half of the country. but by the end of the 1930s, blight caused detrimental chestnut decline. The American chestnut tree was one of the most important trees in the Eastern U.S.
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