Pocket Tree Information from the log of Chapter members: Tom Pachinger and Ken McDonald

Monday was a good day, and an exciting day!!!! Hill Craddock was very excited about the Pocket trees. His opinion is that they all fall well
within the American Chestnut variation range. Of all the trees we looked at-NONE fell outside this range (Dr Craddock). However, I know Fred Hebard is extremely knowledgeable and the one leaf sample (one of the 80 plus trees at this site) sent to him, under story leaves from site # 7- he called Chinkapin. Whether the trees are Chinkapin or Chestnut is going to be debated for some time and I don't expect we'll have a definitive answer for some time.                   

The variation in these trees is tremendous-  chestnut? japenese/american cross? american/chinkapin cross? what ever. What makes it difficult also-we have burs with 3 nuts-American, and the burs on the dead tree had 1 nut per bur-Chinkapin. Shade leaves look Chinkapin-ish-But leaves on the same trees in the sun light look American. The flowers Mike and I bagged Saturday,  I believe were Chinkapin in form-not having 3 rosettes per bud, [Chestnut] but having only one [Chinkapin]. 

I know Hill is very excited about the site and the trees-either way-the lost Japanese American cross'-that's another story-or a natural cross between Chinkapin and Chestnut.  Hill talked about an extinct species of Chestnut that was so described as a cross between Chinkapin and
American Chestnut. Anyway Dr Craddock wanted to pollinate with Chestnut pollen, and if he and Fred can't come to a consensus, we can pollinate some Chinkapin and some Chestnut-[Bendabout Pollen]. Realize we may have missed the opportune time to pollinate these.......either way.

NOW for the REALLY EXCITING NEWS!!!!!! Lisa Worthen, Hill's graduate student, discovered a beautiful tree on top Johns Mountain overlook, about 2-4 miles from the pocket.  I think we should refer to this as the Worthen Look See Tree. It is six to eight inches in diameter at  four foot from the ground, 40-45' high and shows no sign of blight at this time.

  Ken McDonald stands by Worthen Look See Tree

Dr Craddock and his fungus graduate student looked hard for any signs of blight and could not find any. The tree has already desissed  -meaning released it's pollen - so we'll have to wait and pray we can
get this tree pollinated next year.

And finally-Ken and I visited the Carl Meyer Tree Sunday-it shows little change since our last visit. David Keehn and Hill Craddock agreed to let Hill pollinate both the pocket trees and the Carl Meyer tree when the time is right. Pocket trees should be Wed or Thursday.
 

Folks-Ken and I (Tom Pachinger) visited Carl Meyer tree as promised last night. Pictures of tree enclosed. Catkins on
Meyers Tree remind Ken and I of how Pocket trees looked May 29th. My guess is early to mid week tree will need emasculating-you experts please jump in here with your years of experience. We could not see any bi-sexual catkins on the Meyers Tree-however-difficult at best thru a pair of binoculars looking high up in this tree.

Pictures from last night at the Pocket. On two different trees, we found one small spot on each of the two tree's where anthers of catkins are mature to point we believe they are covered with pollen, and numerous insects then on the these two groups of catkins. Ken and I were on site two hours really examining the catkins for bi-sexual catkins, we saw none, we see no female flowers, no separation of nodules along the catkins base, and again no females spotted.  Tom

Hill Craddock and I visited Carl Meyer's tree at Chestnut Flats, GA, yesterday.  It's a nice tree -- about 30' tall, and Carl has cleared around
the base so a bucket truck can get in to it.

The catkins were still immature, and we could not see any female flowers yet.  Hill and I estimated that it would not need bagging for about a week. Then pollination would be about 10 days after that -- perhaps around June 17.

At the Chestnut Flat Grocery where we stopped for lunch, we met Rusty Alexander of Alexander Splicing and Tree Service, who said he could provide a bucket truck for pollination. His cell phone number is ...........

We plan to be at the GA chapter meeting at "The Pocket" on Saturday.

Paul H. Sisco, Ph.D.
Regional Science Coordinator
The American Chestnut Foundation
Southern Appalachian Regional Office

Pocket Trees

Your pictures are good.  It looks like that tree might be ready to bag later this week or this weekend.  However, this is a rough guess based
on the size of the male catkins.  If you had some pictures of bisexual catkins, that could have given a much more accurate assessment of when
the tree will be ready to bag.  Generally, when the female flowers are about the size of a pea, a tree is ready.  More specifically, I look for the beginning of emergence of styles as the prime time to bag a tree.  I've attached a photo.   

 Note also that the male flowers have turned a creamy yellow in my photo, whereas the catkins in your photos are still mostly green.  But again, relying on the male catkins gives you only a rough idea.  The styles are quite reliable.  Here is a picture of what to look for.  [The female floret is at the base of the catkin - a few antlers have begun to emerge are on the male catkin)

The catkins at the top of a tree often will start to bloom before  catkins lower down in the crown.  In my experience, it is best to bag trees when the first few female flowers, usually in the top of a tree,  begin to exert styles, rather than wait on most female flowers to start exerting styles, such as those lower in the crown.

Frederick V. Hebard, PhD                     
Staff Pathologist, Meadowview Research Farms 
American Chestnut Foundation                 

A quick message this morning-pictures to follow later-I visited the Pocket trees Sunday May 29th.
It had been about a week since I had been on site. Catkins had grown in length some, some new ones appear to have formed as well but there was not a tremendous change from the last week. One exception would be site #7 - here the catkins on the upper branches appear to be six to seven inches long. I still see no female flowers anywhere, however, on site #7 it is impossible to get close to these without a ladder. A few catkins [ 6-12 ] were found broken off and just laying on the branch leaves, also some catkins were seen where the ends had turned brown and just the end broken off or still hanging on. However, there are hundreds of catkins on these trees and  only a very small number were seen to exhibit the above mentioned characteristics. I finished the release work Ken had started last week on some newly discovered trees he had found, and found another 6-8 trees in the six to ten foot height range. Also a "giant" dead tree's skeletal remains were found...approx. 30' tall with a five to six inch diameter trunk, it also showed signs of a fire scar.

For the second time in a row I brought back some hitchhikers with me from my visit - ticks, and I mention this so folks can be prepared. Folks also need to be aware this is a very thick under storied area, with a lot of competition going on for the light created when the hurricane went thru. Mike, Ken, Don and I have been able to release around these trees but the areas between trees are thick with vegetation, and keeping the new growth down around the trees is an ongoing process. We do not go into the site with out snake leggings, and we have seen snakes on two different occasions. The walk to the ridge crest is fairly open forest, but once you go over the ridge and onto the site this changes dramatically to more of a cut over area 3 to 5 years old. We plan to send one more update before the weekend and hope to knock under story back one more time before visitors arrive. A note here, there are 3-5 trees, much closer to the trail, one or two with catkins that might be a good alternative for the visitors who come to join the Chapter and are in shorts and tennis shoes.
TOM

PS-I was on vacation last week walking 70 miles of the Appalachian trail, coming out at US 76 just east of Hiawassee, Ga. I saw literally 100's of
chestnut trees along the trail, mostly 6-10 ft, a dozen or more 18-24', and one giant 35' or better that unfortunately was showing signs of blight right at the base. The trees at the higher elevations were very much more single trunk, and usually the bigger trees were at the higher elevations, or the dead remains were of a larger sized tree, for example a 6-8" diameter tree (dead) on the north side of Standing Indian Mountain, NC. I also observed that some of these chestnuts growing at the higher elevations also had grown around a canker or two and were still living. 
 

Pocket Trees

Not much change from last Sunday.  The catkins are larger and there are quite a few more small one's have just emerged...None that looked like the pictures of the bi-sexual catkins.  Three more trees, one of which has catkins...Some release work done before running out of daylight

Pocket Trees

The overall feel we got was that the catkin size is larger but not a big change from the last visit. An inventory of the number of notable trees in the area was taken in order to give everyone a better idea of what we're dealing with...it is really an amazing site.

We have twelve areas marked with numbered stakes.  "Tree" refers to clumps of stump sprouts, two or more stems per tree:

1. one tree...frost damage...a few catkins
2. two trees... one with a few small catkins visible, one with
   numerous catkins 1-3" long
3. two trees...very large number of catkins on both
4. two trees...no catkins
5. three trees...some dead stems...no catkins
6. one tree...frost damaged...no catkins
7. two trees...both with numerous catkins 3 to 3 1/2" long
8. eighteen trees...thirteen with catkins in varying degrees
   • five with no catkins
   • two with bad frost damage
9. one tree...several catkins in top portion
10. three trees...no catkins
11. four trees...three with catkins
12. two trees...thirty foot tall tree mostly dead...no catkins

* unmarked spot near #1    one tree...several small catkins
* 100 yards farther down ridge...eight trees...two with catkins
* next ridge over...seven trees...no catkins
* 1/2 mile around hiking trail...three trees...haven't checked in about a month

If my math is correct, that's sixty trees we know about...twenty seven of
which have catkins.  I think this is going to get interesting... 
 

Pocket Trees

Please see attached pictures...I was at the pocket yesterday morning to fertilize some new trees I had found on Saturday when I decided to check on the trees we already knew about.  I found a large number of trees with catkins ranging from just barely visible to as much as 3 1/2" long.  Tom and I returned yesterday afternoon to get these pictures.
 
The trees with visible catkins range from 6' to 25' in height.  Some trees only have a few catkins visible in the very top  portions of the trees and some are literally covered with catkins on almost every limb.  There are also some quite large trees with no catkins at all...most of these are very close to stems that have apparently died.