By Courtney L. Anderson
A desire to “come back to the trees” prompted Pittsburgh natives Jim and Sandy Hissom to move from coastal California to 60 acres in Coolspring Township after the 82-year-old retired from the military.
“I love the land,” said Hissom, whose farm along Otter Creek is home to about 75 native American chestnut trees he’s planted over the years.
“It’s very easy,” Hissom said of cultivating the once-prominent species that’s been nearly wiped out by fungus over the past century. “I can grow chestnut trees easier than a tomato.”
Hissom is one of about three dozen locals who take part in activities through the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation’s Mercer County breeding program.
“Mercer County has a pretty dedicated group of volunteers,” said Gary W. Micsky, associate extension educator at Penn State Extension Mercer County. “Chestnut restoration is alive and well, particularly in Mercer County.”
The chestnut blight was discovered in 1904 in New York and moved through the natural range of trees in the eastern United States at a “pretty rapid rate,” Micsky said.
Many Pennsylvania forests consisted of more than a quarter American chestnuts. By 1950, about four million trees on nine million acres had been destroyed.
“They were such a large component of the forest and the economy,” Micsky said.
Chestnut trees were an abundant food source for people and wildlife and a strong lumber industry grew from the strong, easily worked timber.
Now, there’s a concentrated effort to reestablish the native chestnuts by breeding blight-resistant trees.
“There’s some real good economics to this and some environmental benefits,” said Micsky, who noted a philosophical reason for trying to repopulate the species, as well.
Micsky pointed out that humans brought the blight that’s killed the trees when importing Asian chestnuts.
“How often do we get a chance to make things right?” asked Micsky, who oversees area endeavors as the western region coordinator for the state chapter of the foundation.
Dane Mitchell of Greene Township has been part of the efforts for about five years, which is about how long the group has existed.
“My interest has been in conservation for a long time,” said Mitchell, a retired high school English teacher Micsky called the group’s “Mr. Everything.”
Through the foundation, eight research and demonstration orchards have been planted in Mercer County. Volunteers gather pollen, pollinate the trees and harvest the nuts. There are orchards in Coolspring, Delaware, French Creek, Shenango and Sandy Lake townships and a lot of volunteers have small plantings, as well, Micsky said.
“It’s a small group locally, but it is growing,” Mitchell said.
That growth will continue if more young people like 18-year-old Leora Cantolina of Lake Township get involved.
Miss Cantolina joined the group the summer before her junior year of high school to get some field experience working with trees.
The Penn State Shenango student said she plans to major in horticulture and her time with the foundation gives her a leg up on other budding botanists because she has a better understanding of the biological aspects of plants.
“I would definitely encourage other young people to get involved because the experience is so rewarding and is something that will always be a part of you,” Miss Cantolina said. “And the people you meet and connect with are amazing.”
“It’s really good to have a part in a nationwide scientific effort that is achieving results,” Mitchell said.
Micsky said American chestnuts are cross-bred with resistant trees, like the Chinese chestnut, and those specimens go through a series of back crosses to try to retain the genetic resistance. Trees are inoculated with the fungus so any that might be susceptible die off quickly and the others are retained for breeding.
“We really need thousands of these trees planted every year,” Micksy said. “It’s taken a long time for science to catch up.”
The biggest thing developed locally is a network of trained volunteers to help with breeding, Micsky said.
“This takes a lot of hours and a lot of hands,” he said, adding that they need suitable sites for growing new trees, which take six or seven years to flower.
And when trees need to be pollinated varies from year to year with the weather, Micsky said.
The group doesn’t know how successful they’ve been until the fall harvest and 2009 has been “the most bizarre year of all,” he said. A May cold snap “really messed us up.”
“A lot of it is just reconnaissance,” Micsky said, explaining that they have to check the growth of flowers and burs — the spiny fruit that encases the nut.
People routinely travel 60-feet in the air in a bucket truck to pollinate trees, Micsky said. They’ve also launched helium balloons loaded with pollen up into the trees and burst them with 22-gauge birdshot
“We have a lot of fun, too, with the project,” Micsky said.
Another vital role the volunteers play is helping to find surviving trees and get positively identify them as native American chestnuts, Micsky said.
A few years ago, Roy Bronson discovered what may or may not be American chestnut trees near his home in Coolspring Township.
Several new trees have grown up around an old stump off Old Fredonia Road.
“The squirrels bury them like they do all nuts,” said 93-year-old Bronson, whose wife Vera found inspiration for a number of paintings at their picturesque property.
There are more out there than people realize, Micsky said, and probably more than volunteers physically have time to pollinate.
He said American chestnut leaves tend to be longer and more canoe-shaped, with more pronounced teeth on the edges. But characteristics differ from tree to tree.
Micsky said that most of Mercer County isn’t ideal for chestnut trees, as they do best in well-drained soils. And even people who don’t have a good place to plant the trees can get involved, he said.
Hissom has had luck starting seedlings indoors. He said he piped heat into his garage and the chestnuts grow under lights.
Micsky said that chestnuts grow rapidly and are being used to reforest abandoned strip mines. He also noted that the Mercer County Woodland Owners Association has been very supportive.
Folks are also working to get the word out to youth about conservation and saving the mighty chestnut.
The Hissoms invite Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops to the orchard to observe and identify trees, he said. A group recently put together a guide book for the tree farm, Hissom said.
Hissom said he likes doing things with young people and it’s good for the kids.
“The land’ll always be here with us — they need to take care of it,” he said.
For more information, visit www.patacf.org. To have a tree analyzed, fill out a locator form online or call the foundation at 814-863-7192.
