American Chestnut Trees in Cuyahoga Valley National Park Past, Present, and Future
MacKay B and Trimbath RJ. American Chestnut Trees in Cuyahoga Valley National Park Past, Present, and Future. National Park Service
The American chestnut was once a keystone species in the forests of the eastern United States, where as many as one out of every four trees was an American chestnut. These trees were important to wildlife, and also to humans and their way of life, before an invasive fungus began to wipe out 90% of the American chestnut population more than a century ago. The purpose of this paper is to describe the park’s response in the 1930 and 1940’s to the loss of the American chestnut and to document the plantings of hundreds of Asian chestnuts and Asian-American hybrids in the park as potential replacements. To put these local restoration efforts into historical context, the early breeding work on chestnuts that was conducted outside of the park will be discussed. The more recent outside research to develop blight-resistant hybrid chestnuts, as well as genetically-modified chestnuts, will also be described. A brief summary of the few, known American chestnut trees and sprouts in CVNP will be provided. We propose that small-scale demonstration plantings of American chestnuts be placed in accessible and historically relevant locations in CVNP after blight-tolerant chestnuts are approved for distribution by federal agencies.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- MacKay, Becky; Trimbath, Ryan
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- CUVA
- Keywords
- American chestnut, back-cross breeding, Castanea dentata, Castanea mollissima, chestnut blight, Chinese chestnut, Cryphonectria parasitica, Cuyahoga Valley, CVNP, Eugene Cranz, genetic engineering, genetically modified, restoration, transgenic, Virginia Kendall Park