November 24 Newsletter

By Evan Fox, VT/NH Chapter President

What a difference a year makes! Last year we bemoaned the effects of a late May frost which seriously changed plans for fieldwork. But we pollinated with what we believed was Darling 58 pollen at the Hort Farm in S. Burlington, VT thinking deregulation was imminent and we’d have a first generation of chapter produced, blight resistant nuts. Then last December we were told it was all a mistake – that Darling 58 hardly existed. It was all Darling 54. And even though Darling 54 was part of ESF’s deregulation petition, it was flawed – declared a bad performer and TACF would no longer support the petition or ESF. We don’t even know what happened to the transgenic nuts produced as the result of our pollinations; assume they are now in the trash heap of restoration efforts.

Other items of interest include:

·        The return of the Breeding Approach: “Best by Best” is the common name for “Recurrent Genomic Selection” (RGS), the science plan.

·        We have a new “brand” and logo.

·        TACF’s Chapters Committee has recommended a new licensing agreement for implementation.

·        TACF’s corporate home city of Asheville has been devastated by flooding.

·        We never had a better year financially. Our mission has inspired many people to donate.

·        Our GCO’s, which are preserving genetic diversity, did amazingly well.

·        We harvested so many wild American nuts from controlled crosses and open pollinations, that we aren’t sure how all of them will be grown. More than10,000 viable nuts were harvest from seven trees. The trees we know and love got mad about last year’s frost and made 2024 about getting even.

It’s also back to the future. TACF has received recommendations from an independent Research Advisory Committee (RAC) which believes in the 3-Bur approach, for the diverse way it works to find a restorable tree. But the RAC cautions it is a process to be followed, not an individual product to be found. Breeding is back in a more focused way, with genomic testing universally used for core guidance. It’s expensive but definitive. Chapter field work will be more collaborative across states.

What the College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry is doing is certainly relevant. We’ll watch it carefully, even though there has been a divorce.

What’s ahead in 2025? I’ve learned from last year to this one, not to be sure. What a difference a year makes.  The RAC has recommended that restoration efforts in the field not wait for a blight resistant chestnut. We need to gain silvicultural knowledge and experience we don’t have, so when a blight resistant tree is available, we don’t outplant it in places and ways that result in combined mortality rates approaching what the blight could have caused.

It seems that outreach efforts are what’s poised to hit a new stride in 2025. Chapter support from National in the form of two excellent, now seasoned outreach coordinators are an asset we’ve begun to work with effectively. Tom Estill continues his march across the state(s) educating everyone who will listen and infiltrating schools. Will Abbott plans to utilize greenhouse space to grow seedlings early enough to distribute them at events, expanded beyond the Farm and Forest Show(s) to NH Conservation Commission Association events.  We’ve struck up what might be a blueprint collaboration with the New London, NH Conservation Commission (NLCC). It supports our Chapter with membership, plantings, help in the field and harvest shucking. The New London public library is a great venue for our annual spring meeting. We support NLCC with free nuts, seedlings, weed mats, posts, caging and expertise.

In every communication I stress that we are all volunteers. Your individual and collective efforts keep things going. Thank you for all of them. We need a new secretary who must be Board member. Dan Jones has agreed to serve in that role, previously filled by Bill Coder. If you can serve as a Director and Secretary, let last year’s nominating committee chair, Dan Jones know. We need a nominating committee chair because Dan fills that role too! His contributions are exemplary. He seems to be at every field event and manages the Windsor GCO but he cannot do it all. We need to get younger – don’t be intimidated by anything you read – join our efforts!

Evan Fox

VT/NH Chapter President

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Two TACF restoration approaches to American chestnut restoration, Breeding and Biotech, were progressing alongside each other until problems with Darling 58 and 54 transgenic trees caused the Biotech approach to slow down. However, the Breeding program has taken an alternative course by crossbreeding trees known to be partially blight resistant. Originally cross breeding was done with wild American chestnut trees. The current approach, “Recurrent Genomic Selection” or “Best of the Bes” is explained below by New England Regional Science Coordinator, Kendra Collins.

“The breeding program of TACF has been evolving over the past few years. With the support of TACF’s scientific staff, board leadership, and outside scientific review, we are launching into a program of recurrent genomic selection (RGS), or what some have been calling “best x best” breeding. There are similarities to the backcross breeding program TACF launched at its inception, and in fact, most of the trees we’ll utilize are from those earlier backcrossing efforts, however there are some major differences. First, we know we need more Chinese chestnut genes to confer blight resistance, so we are aiming to produce trees with at least 70% American chestnut ancestry, and high levels of disease resistance, whether that be to blight, Phytophthora root rot, or both. Second, with the cost of genotyping decreasing, and selection modelling improving, this RGS approach makes intentional pairings of trees, such that the offspring reach these desired levels of American chestnut ancestry and disease resistance, and contribute to the genetic diversity of the population. And third, we are regionalizing breeding across three distinct zones identified through population genomics research; in order to increase the number of trees we can combine with these intentional crosses.

What does this mean for the VT/NH Chapter? Our region now includes all of New England and the north-central Appalachians, so we need to collaborate far beyond our two states. In terms of making crosses, some of the trees in the VT/NH orchards have been identified to be used as parents and we can make crosses on our local trees and/or collect pollen to be used in other locations. The bigger impact is the opportunity to host new types of plantings. The RGS trees need to be thoroughly vetted and chapters can help by hosting test orchards of this material, as well as planting a subset in forested locations to work towards incremental restoration goals. We can start engaging potentially interested landowners now, by installing test plantings to determine if a site would be suitable for a larger planting in the near future. We have a great new tool for vetting planting interest on our website – please share with any landowners or organizations you think might be interested in supporting our work by hosting a research orchard: https://tacf.org/get-chestnuts/ “

New London, NH Conservation Commission Partnership

By Bob Brown, New London Conservation Commission

On Saturday, September 14th, the VT/NH Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) held its first ever joint Orchard Management Day with the New London, NH Conservation Commission (NLCC). The NLCC is a proud chapter member and previously planted, and is now managing, eighty chestnut trees at three sites in New London: the Esther Currier Wildlife Management Area at Low Plain, Clark Lookout, and Shaker Street.

The project for the day was to plant an additional 22 seedlings at the site on Shaker Street and to redo the tree cages and mulch at both the Shaker Street location and at the planting area at the Clark Lookout trail. 18 volunteers from the NLCC, TACF, Elkins Fish & Game Club and Nature Groupie worked on the project, splitting up into two groups to complete the work at both sites.

TACF VT/NH generously provided all the metal posts, fencing, and plant matting for the project and the New London DPW provided the soil and bark mulch. Following the work, TACF also provided a BBQ lunch for all the volunteers, which was held at Elkins Beach on Pleasant Lake.

The American chestnut, which once dominated the forests of the eastern United States, was decimated by a deadly Asian blight starting in the late 1800s. Within 50 years the tree population was almost totally wiped out and the chestnut became functionally extinct. Through scientific research and breeding, TACF is working to develop a blight-resistant American chestnut tree. Planting sites, like the ones in New London, help with this valuable research.

The NLCC thanks TACF and all the volunteers for doing a great job.

Our indefatigable Board member, Tom Estill from Rutland, VT continued on his mission to have American chestnuts growing at all VT schools; and some in NH. Following is a list of Tom’s spring and summer activities. Thanks Tom!

1. May 9th, Dropped off chestnut seedlings to Landaff Blue School and Lisbon Regional School in NH

2. May 10th-Gave Community talk on history, demise and current efforts to restore Amer. Chestnut to 40 attendees at Godnick Center in Rutland, VT

3. May 20th-Gave another talk to Community members on Pine Hill Park Ecology and Amer. Chestnut to 37 attendees at Godnick Center in Rutland

4. June 3rth-Dropped off Amer. Chestnut seedlings to Neshobe School in Brandon, Otter Valley Union Middle/H.S. in Brandon, and Lothroph School in VT

5. June 7th-Planted 2 American Chestnut seedlings at Pine Hill Park in Rutland, VT

6. June 10- Dropped off Amer. Chestnut seedlings to Leicester Central, Salisbury Community School, Middlebury Union Middle AND High School, Mary Hogan Elementary School, and Ripton Elem. School, all in Vermont

7. June 11-Dropped off Amer. Chestnut seedlings to Randolph H.S. in Vermont

8. August 12-Planted 2 Amer. Chestnut seedlings with campers from the Wonderfeet Museum Summer Science Camp Program at Pine Hill Park, Rutland

9. August 13- Planted 2 Amer. Chestnut seedlings with 2nd group of Wonderfeet Museum summer campers at Pine Hill Park, Rutland

10. August 16-Gave 3 presentations to 3 different science classes at Mt. St. Joseph H.S. in Rutland, VT on the history of the American Chestnut and harvested nuts from their school’s small orchard.

11. August 18th-Gave a presentation to 6th graders at Christ the King School in Rutland, VT on the history of the American Chestnut and showed them how to care for the 4 American Chestnuts on the school grounds.

Here is Tom’s description, and a photo, of a recent activity

“Took 18 6th graders on a hike through Pine Hill Park in Rutland, VT as part of their study of forest ecology. Showed them the 5 locations of the 50 some American Chestnut trees their classmates have planted in the past and what they have to look forward to when they start taking care of the trees in 8th grade. The picture shows a few of the students observing the red blight on the single tree infected in the park. We all had a fun day.” 

The NH Association of Conservation Commissions periodically invites speakers to give lunch time presentations to its members. On October 23 VT/NH Chapter Board member, Will Abbot, gave a Power Point chestnut restoration presentation to this group. What made it unique for our Chapter is that it was not face-to-face. It was done with zoom technology and was well received by the 23 attendees. This is an outreach technique the VT/NH Chapter hopes to use in the future to reach potential restoration advocates and to increase membership.

Board member, Doug McLane, recently hosted a site visit to the stand of amazing American chestnut ghost trees in Canterbury NH. Chapter President, Evan Fox, MA/RI Board member Brian McLain and ME Chapter Board member Tom Klak joined Doug for this unique opportunity to see what could be, the largest ghost trees in the northeast.

TACF American Chestnut Symposium

By Kendra Collins

The 2024 TACF American Chestnut Symposium, the fall annual meeting of the foundation, was hosted October 25-26 in nearby Cromwell, CT. The meeting featured an impressive slate of speakers on topics from evolutionary history to eco-poetry, chestnut education to the chestnut bee. Attendees had the opportunity to engage with students currently studying American chestnut through a series of flash talks, as well as a research poster session. In addition to indoor learning opportunities, this meeting featured a tour of a chestnut cabin, as well as opportunities to tour the nearby CT Agricultural Experiment Station’s (CAES) extensive chestnut collection at their Lockwood Farm (and the weather couldn’t have been better!). The proximity to CAES was indeed the reason Cromwell was selected, as the chestnut collections at Lockwood Farm, as well as nearby Sleeping Giant, are the oldest, most diverse, and most extensive in the US. The opportunity to see so many historic/named chestnut trees, all the Castanea species, and many complex hybrids, along with special guests Dr. Sandy Anagnostakis and Dr. Dick Jaynes (both former CAES chestnut researchers), was truly memorable. If you missed it and want more information: https://tacf.org/2024-american-chestnut-symposium