Chestnut Notes    Edward Frank
   Mar 05, 2007 20:30 PST 
ENTS,

Another encounter with some old chestnut snags has again peaked my interest in American Chestnut trees. I have some correspondence and a couple of links I wanted to share with all of you. Neil Pederson has a nice listing of American an Chestnut ages in his Eastern Old-List - specifically on this page: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~adk/oldlisteast/Spp/CADE.html

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Greg Weaver of ACF wrote: (regarding chestnut cross-sections and stump specimens)

I know of a rotten 11.5 ft diameter chestnut stump on the Ramsay Cascades trail (photo published in the spring 2003 edition of the Journal of the American Chestnut Foundation), but it is too rotten for coring.

Probably for what you need, the best I can think of are on the Rainbow Falls trail. There are several ~4ft diameter chestnut logs in the first half mile of the rainbow falls trail that could probably be cored. These are the best candidates that I can think of offhand. They are easy to find, off the left side of the trail.

There is a large standing trunk about 70 ft tall and 14 ft in circumference in the first 1.5 miles of the Gregory Bald trail in Cades Cove. It is about 50 yards off the trail to the left and a little hard to find in the summer because of the undergrowth, but it could probably be found now. It may be hollow, however, I can't tell from looking at the base. It is the largest standing trunk that I know of.
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There are some photos of chestnut stumps on the Cumberland Plateau, TN and KY on these pages:
http://www2.volstate.edu/JSchibig/chestnutphotossummer2005.htm
http://www2.volstate.edu/jschibig/summer2004b.htm
http://www2.volstate.edu/JSchibig/cdentatastumpsmetcalfecoky.htm
http://www2.volstate.edu/jschibig/AmericanChestnStump&Sprouts,LBL,1975.htm
http://www.tnchestnut.org/Meetings/savagegulfhikeaug2005.htm

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American Chestnut Tree http://www.chattoogariver.org/index.php?req=chestnut&quart=W2002
Article about the American Chestnut Tree, reprinted from American Forestry, October, 1915.


For more information see The American Chestnut Foundation http://www.acf.org/

and the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation http://ipm.ppws.vt.edu/griffin/accf.html
More American Chestnut notes   Edward Frank
  Mar 06, 2007 08:15 PST 
ENTS,

Here are a couple of examples older ring count data:

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First from Dr. Greg Weaver of the Tennessee Chapter of ACF

I do have a copy of a newspaper article from the Scottsville (KY) Argus Sept 6, 1876 that reads:

"A chestnut tree was cut down on the premises of Mr. S. J. Read in this county a few days ago which measured 9 feet across at the base, from which he obtained six cuts that made 700 rails. Mr. Read counted the pores of the tree and allowing one for each year made it 230 years old."

[[That is a growth rate of 0.235 inches/year very similar to the number Larry has been getting for Live Oaks ...EFF]]

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Second from Dr. Sandra Anagnostakis of the Conn. Agric. Expt. Station - I am sure Topica will mess up the tables, but perhaps the pattern in the individual or group emails will be OK

Austin F. Hawes, 1906. Chestnut in Connecticut and the improvement of the woodlot. CT Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 154, 41 pages.


Hawes 1906

 

age, years

dbh, inches

19

3

22

4

25

5

29

6

32

7

35

8

39

9

42

10

45

11

48

12

51

13

55

14

58

15

61

16

64

17

68

18

71

19

74

20

78

21

81

22

84

23

88

24

91

25

94

26

97

27

101

28

104

29

108

30

Earl H. Frothingham, 1912. Second-growth hardwoods in Connecticut. 
USDA Forest Service Bulletin 96, 59 pages.

Frothingham,

1912

1st quality

2nd quality

3rd quality

age, years

dbh, inches

dbh, inches

dbh, inches

15

3.2

2.6

2

20

4.4

3.6

2.7

25

5.4

4.5

3.5

30

6.4

5.3

4.3

35

7.3

6.1

5

40

8.1

6.8

5.6

45

8.9

7.5

6.2

50

9.6

8.2

6.8

55

10.3

8.8

7.3

60

10.9

9.4

7.8

65

11.6

9.9

8.3

70

12.2

10.5

8.7

75

12.8

11

9.2

 

Re: More American Chestnut notes   Neil Pederson
  Mar 06, 2007 18:58 PST 
Ed,

this is real interesting info. from the few data sets available, it seems
Am. chestnut was, as they might say in New England, a wicked growth - much
like live oak. northern red oak can be in that category, though to a lesser
degree. except for the population on Wachusett Mtn, most red oak populations
I've cored [about 25 populations now], are very fast growing. they can be
large in diameter - > 0.5m DBH - and often 90-150 yrs old. there are
exceptions, of course.

neil
Re: More American Chestnut notes   Edward Frank
  Mar 08, 2007 12:38 PST 
Neil, ENTS,

I was curious about chestnut cookies and historical tree ring counts so I wrote a note to the American Chestnut Foundation and the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation. I received a pretty good response and I posted the relevant information to the ENTS list.

Is there a repository that can be searched for individual tree ring counts that are not part of series of ten+ that are required in most cases by ITRDB? For example the cucumbertree stuff from the sampling in VA would not show up in the web search of the ITRDB website.

Ed
Re: More American Chestnut notes   Neil Pederson
  Mar 08, 2007 16:21 PST 
Ed, ENTS,

The ITRDB is the repository for tree ring measurements. Not all published
data is in the data bank; much published data has not been deposited to the
data bank. Most tree ring people are even less inclined to deposit data from
one or two trees. Some folks wait until they have used data in its intended
publication. The cucumbertree data, for example, will be used in another pub
- it was not intended to be used as a max age data point.

I am not aware of other tree ring data banks.

sorry,