American Chestnut

American Chestnut

AoSHQ: Morning Report 02.25.26

American Chestnuts

American Chestnut

AoSHQ: Morning Report 02.11.26

Why don't we roast chestnuts anymore?

American Chestnut

There are still roasted chestnuts (you can see them in some push carts in east coast cities), but they are almost all imported chestnuts from Europe or Turkey. There are still lots of roasted chestnuts in Europe (the European chestnut is more blight resistant than the American chestnut). American chestnuts were certainly roasted in the past, but they are smaller (but sweeter).  

American chestnuts are almost extinct in their native range. Just a few survive. 

American (and European) chestnuts still survive in the Pacific Northwest. The blight never really got there (intensely) due to prevailing winds (west to east) and the climate does not favor the blight (this fungus prefers hot and humid summers and summers in the PNW tend to be dry).  

There is also the chinkapin chestnut (closely related to the American chestnut, but in shrub form). It seems to have some disease resistance.  

Bringing back the American chestnut to its natural range would be a very good thing. It is a great tree for timber, wildlife, and food.  

EBL: Restoring the American Chestnut

AoSHQ: Morning Report 01.13.25

Doom

The face of impending doom. from r/gifs

Restoring the American Chestnut

A magnificent tree that once represented 25% of the hardwood forest of the Northeast North America.  It's nuts fed flocks of passenger pigeons, turkeys, bear, squirrels, deer, and people.  It was a valuable timber tree and its wood was especially rot resistant.  But the chestnut blight, a fungal infection imported from Asia, wiped out those forests in just a generation.  

There are a few isolated stands left, some perhaps blight resistant and some isolated by geography (settlers planted the tree throughout the upper midwest and west).  There are efforts to bring it back to its historic range.  You can help by planting these potentially resistant varieties.