A Visit to the hybrid chestnut farm in Stahlstown. (May 2004)
Doug Bauman
On May 22 Dick Byers and I visited the PA chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation chestnut farm in Stahlstown, PA. This farm is owned and run by the president of the PA chapter, Bob Summersgill. The meeting began with a computer presentation down the road in Donnegal, some of that information is available on their web page:
http://www.patacf.org/bc_pgm.htm
Next we proceeded to Bob's farm which is only a few miles out of Stahlstown. The old farmhouse and barn we saw as we drove into the farm were a suiting introduction to our afternoon's tour. Bob showed us the first set of trees, over 400 trees of various stages of pure American, pure Chinese, and hybrids. All of the trees were protected by hollow plastic protectors. These were either 6 feet high on the smaller trees, to protect them from the deer, or 4 foot on the trees already beyond the reach of the deer. It was striking to see rows upon rows of trees each row about 8 foot from another. The biggest realization, to actually see in person, was that here and there a few of the trees had died, with only shoots from the roots sometimes remaining. This brought home the reality of the blight, sometimes actually seeing is believing. The blighted regions encircled these small dying trees. But not many of the trees were in this dying state, because we were told that as soon as they became infected, they were cut back and removed from the orchard. All in all it was an impressive sight to see a large orchard with so many chestnut trees.
Here is a part of the hybrid chestnut orchard planted in 1999. The tubes on these trees are 4 feet tall, reduced from 6 feet once the tree gets out of the reach of deer. Next after a short refreshment break, we proceed to see the next orchard at his farm. The trees planted there are part of a new program the ACF is working on, called Cytoplasmic Male Sterility (CMS), a better and quicker technique. After that, he took us for a walk in the woods by his farm which were clear cut about 12 years ago. Since then, many American Chestnut trees shot up from the shoots which they send up. Apparently, with lots of sun, these trees grow faster and taller than all of their competition. These American Chestnuts are now all affected by the blight. Most have died, but a few are still bearing nuts, and are now being overtaken by the other kinds of trees because of the effects of the blight. We were told that one of these trees had produced more nuts in PA than any other at it's peak.
After all of the tours, we again enjoyed refreshments back at Bob's farmhouse. Bob is looking for volunteers to help inoculate his trees on Saturday June 5th. His phone number is 908-647-5864; Email: operations@patacf.org
Dick Byers had a few comments as well:
In addition to Doug's comments, I was impressed with the rapid growth of the trees. Hardwood trees with dense grain usually are slow growing. This is yet another beneficial quality of the American chestnut. The first orchard we walked into had trees that averaged 7-8 feet in height and were planted from seed in 1999. We were also shown a tree in the woods that was 12 years old. It was about 35 feet tall. A forester in the group said it was probably 40 feet. It will soon die of the blight, but had to be the fastest growing quality hardwood I've ever seen.
Penn State is expected to have the 6th generation hybrid chestnuts by 2010. The resistant trees of this generation will produce the seed that will be 98% American chestnut with the blight resistant genes. Since it will take about 8-9 years for those trees to bear seed and another year for planting, we are talking about planting the first Pennsylvania chestnut forest that will not die of the blight in roughly 20 years.
