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December 2024 - Best look to an early December pattern in many a year!


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1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

Is that a blight-resistant American Chestnut? 
 

If not, being isolated like that might help it survive. 

No. None are really resistant. But they’re from parentage that survived many decades while battling the blight cankers to produce seeds. The american chestnut foundation collects pollen from the few remaining large trees and pollinates the others in the eastern US. Oaks carry the blight so there’s really no escaping it. 

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1 minute ago, dendrite said:

No. None are really resistant. But they’re from parentage that survived many decades while battling the blight cankers to produce seeds. The american chestnut foundation collects pollen from the few remaining large trees and pollinates the others in the eastern US. Oaks carry the blight so there’s really no escaping it. 

We have a bunch in one of the nature preserves in Hopkinton near us, but all the saplings split open once they grow large enough. It’s weird how the trees are totally fine until they get to a certain size. 

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2 hours ago, DavisStraight said:

Get any apples yet? I have two apple trees, last two years I got a total of 3 apples and the trees are bigger than yours, maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Yeah I got a few, but rootstock makes a big difference on size, precociousness, and biennialism. Honeycrisp tends to want to really flower every other year unless you prune it hard annually. Are yours honeycrisp? I’ve become more of a pear guy. Ripe pears off the tree are amazing. Here’s an apple off the above tree. This is all no spray.

image.jpeg

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8 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

We have a bunch in one of the nature preserves in Hopkinton near us, but all the saplings split open once they grow large enough. It’s weird how the trees are totally fine until they get to a certain size. 

When they get old enough for the bark to start to fissure is when the demise usually starts. It gives more openings for the blight to get in. Some of these younger trees with improved resistance develop something called “cruddy bark” now which is the tree battling the fungus and trying to heal over it. It enables them to grow long enough to reach maturity. That’s really the key for bringing the tree back. If they can all live 20-30 years and just be able to reproduce they can slowly try to evolve on their own. 

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9 minutes ago, dendrite said:

When they get old enough for the bark to start to fissure is when the demise usually starts. It gives more openings for the blight to get in. Some of these younger trees with improved resistance develop something called “cruddy bark” now which is the tree battling the fungus and trying to heal over it. It enables them to grow long enough to reach maturity. That’s really the key for bringing the tree back. If they can all live 20-30 years and just be able to reproduce they can slowly try to evolve on their own. 

I have heard that a 10% blend with the Chinese chestnut gives them resistance.  Is that accurate?

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Just now, Go Kart Mozart said:

I have heard that a 10% blend with the Chinese chestnut gives them resistance.  Is that accurate?

Not really. The Chinese hybrids with backcrossing back to American have struggled. And they quickly lose their american traits, like towering height, which makes them fail in forest settings since they can’t compete with oaks, maples, pine, etc. Those dunstan trees you may see are mostly chinese…probably 80-90%. So those will survive, but you may as well plant a chinese tree. If someone wants to grow chestnuts for improved nut production there’s a lot of great hybdrid varieties out there with huge, tasty nuts with good blight resistance. 

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35 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Yeah I got a few, but rootstock makes a big difference on size, precociousness, and biennialism. Honeycrisp tends to want to really flower every other year unless you prune it hard annually. Are yours honeycrisp? I’ve become more of a pear guy. Ripe pears off the tree are amazing. Here’s an apple off the above tree. This is all no spray.

image.jpeg

I have a delicious and I forget the other one, I have a pear tree too that has given a lot of fruit in the past but the tree needs pruning this winter.

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1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

We have a bunch in one of the nature preserves in Hopkinton near us, but all the saplings split open once they grow large enough. It’s weird how the trees are totally fine until they get to a certain size. 

The splitting open is more likely a deer rub.

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59 minutes ago, dendrite said:

When they get old enough for the bark to start to fissure is when the demise usually starts. It gives more openings for the blight to get in. Some of these younger trees with improved resistance develop something called “cruddy bark” now which is the tree battling the fungus and trying to heal over it. It enables them to grow long enough to reach maturity. That’s really the key for bringing the tree back. If they can all live 20-30 years and just be able to reproduce they can slowly try to evolve on their own. 

The one I showed you earlier this year is probably pushing 20. Got to be 30 ft tall. No signs on the bark yet but I imagine it's not going to survive.

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4 minutes ago, kdxken said:

Doubt you'll have much success. But good luck!

I expect them to die within 10-15 years. The goal was to get these to survive until the ones modified with the blight resistant gene are introduced…but that suffered a setback after the lead scientist died and there was a mixup with which trees were what. 

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4 minutes ago, kdxken said:

The one I showed you earlier this year is probably pushing 20. Got to be 30 ft tall. No signs on the bark yet but I imagine it's not going to survive.

Didn’t your daughter live up on the hill here? I took a ride further up this summer and saw a bunch of suckers growing off the side of the road…probably 850ft up. 

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54 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I expect them to die within 10-15 years. The goal was to get these to survive until the ones modified with the blight resistant gene are introduced…but that suffered a setback after the lead scientist died and there was a mixup with which trees were what. 

Nice to see people trying.

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11 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Snow melt pouring off the roof here.  Thick fog too.  It’s like it’s gotten into the warm sector but keeps wanting to radiate to the dew point.

We’ve had some really strong winds here. Neighbor’s Christmas tree went rolling through my front yard like a tumbleweed. 

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13 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Snow melt pouring off the roof here.  Thick fog too.  It’s like it’s gotten into the warm sector but keeps wanting to radiate to the dew point.

Melting snow latently cools too. So if you don’t keep that warm sector mixing down the cold wants to pool back up. 

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