Chestnut photos, winter 2005
The TN-TACF Chapter held their winter meeting
at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tn.
on Jan. 29, 2005.
(Photo by Paul Sisco)
Tennessee chestnut planters are a hardy bunch. (Photo from Hill Craddock)
Clint Neel is starting a backcross orchard in south central Tennessee--good luck Clint.
Chestnut hunters converge on a new mother tree in West Tennessee to gather data and scionwood. (Photos on Jan. 9 by Bill Turner and Joe Schibig)
From left to right, Mark Vance, Joe Schibig, Jeramie Tinsley, Robert Barret, Lela Pinchot, and Jack Torkelson gather around the newly discovered tree (dbh = 7.4 in., height--55 feet). Robert, a consulting forester, discovered the tree and reported it to Scott Schlarbaum at U. T./Knoxville who reported it to Paul Sisco, TACF science coordinator, who reported it to Bill Turner and Joe Schibig. Leila Pinchot is a U. T. research technician who is working for Scott Schlarbaum at the Ames Plantation in West Tennessee; she has the distinction of being the great granddaughter of the great forester, Gifford Pinchot.
Jack, a closet arborist, reveals his climbing skill by ascending a beech tree next to the chestnut to snip twigs from it for grafting.
Jeramie, Joe, and Mark inspect a fallen chestnut branch; they are looking for healthy twigs and buds to use for nutgrafting.
Mark inspects the amply flagged mother tree. This lone tree produced sterile nuts in 2004, but in June we will pollinate this tree and hopefully gather some good nuts from it.
Blight got established (note the orange spore-producing stroma) in this tree via a bullet hole. Robert is going to apply a mudpack to treat the blighted area. What is this green bug doing out a January day?--global warming I guess.
According to Hill Craddock, the black stuff on the left is probably some kind of slime mold and the fungus on the right is called "Little Brown Mushroom". These curious life forms were found within 100 feet of the chestnut tree, in the depth of winter, but it has been unusually mild recently.
This Weakley County chestnut lives a county up from the previous Carroll County chestnut; it is the westernmost large chestnut we know of in Tennessee. (Photos on Jan. 9, by Joe Schibig)
In the left photo, Jack retrieves a branch, scionwood, which was shot off with a rifle by Mark. We are going to attempt to graft this tree which at a distance looks healthy, but closer inspection reveals that it is blighted--note the dreaded signature of blight-- orange stroma, the kiss of death.