Hunting for American Chestnut

have you ever found an american chestnut while most people have heard the story of these giants of the past who are wiped out by an invasive blight what you might not know is that there's still a lot of american chestnut around whether you're in your woods or hiking around on a trail you might be passing these trees or at least smaller versions of them and not even know it today we're gonna learn a little bit about the process of hunting for american chestnut and reporting those trees if you do happen to find them we're going to go out in the woods with two very experienced chestnutters who have lots of reports in fact the number one chestnut finder on the tree snap app hi i'm ken darnell president of the kentucky chapter of the american chestnut foundation we're here today to talk about american chestnuts and we're here to focus on tree snap and the use of tree snap in the searching process to find the trees then the data entry to track and map the trees and i'm jimmy sizemore i'm here again with with uh with ken and ellen in the red river gorge i'm also a member of the kentucky chapter of the american chestnut foundation also the kentucky woodland owners association and i know we're going to talk a lot about tree snap today a tree snap is a is a tool that i use and and when i'm out out in the woods i use it a lot for american chestnuts but also some other other species as well and i think it's a very valuable tool ken so we're here talking about tree snap we both use it understand what a great tool it is but by far you are the tree snap expert especially when it comes to the american chestnut so i'd like you to tell us a little bit about your experience with tree snap why did you use it and and how how does it fit in with what you normally do yeah so so good question and that's a long story it's so so the past three and a half years i've been using tree snap pretty much since street snap came out it was introduced to us we're going out to find to cover as much ground as we can that's usually via trails and we're going out to find as many wild american chestnut trees as we can so so it's it's work but it's also a lot of fun because because the plus is i have seen parts of kentucky i've been on trails i've been on clifftops i've been on side paths i've crawled under laurel in places climbed up cliff crevices places that i never would have gone otherwise if you're just on your typical you know occasional hike so so the value of it for the work part is to is to search for trees and and find well kind of two parts to find where they do grow and to find where they do not grow so your searching process kind of tells you both as you're hiking the trails for example here we're we're in beautiful red river gorge which has been the central focus of the i think what is the 40 000 acres or so of red river gorge which is a part of the 708 000 acres of daniel boone national forest there's a lot of places to go so hiking the trails allows you to do two things it allows you to cover a lot of ground to search and if you select the trails that follow the ridge tops where american chestnuts tend to grow then you're you're putting yourself where you might find trees but also part of that is where you don't find trees that leaves a hole in the map that you plot to tell us that trees don't grow like along the creek beds for example they tend not to grow the other part of searching for american chestnuts is the fact that it's a lot of fun for exercise you know i'm retired now after a long career as a plant manager in a wood business if i'm home i'm drinking coffee on the computer and nibbling on snacks and things and and i've got to have something get me out and burn some calories and keep in shape and uh well i still have a lot of energy left i want to cover as much ground as possible you mentioned hiking that that word keeps coming up and you know that's the way that you typically would use it you know me too you know i uh i'm out hiking and i just happen to see see a chestnut you know and of course you know we've got our handy phone and we don't even have we don't even have to have have service and we can use that phone to do something that's really important while we're out there just having a blast anyway another thing that you mentioned that i think is you know i've done it myself you know i i maybe maybe i want to know if there are chestnuts in this particular area i've looked at a deed or my father or someone has told me you know i remember chestnuts and so i go back to just see now that's that's where i'm actually intentionally going to an area looking for something and you've certainly done done a lot of that but also you know you've done it just just while you were out hiking anyway in areas that you that you just wanted to visit it it gives you a an incentive if you would to go some places maybe and hike some trails that you've never hiked before but also you know it's just you you've got the tool right here with you when you're out just you know maybe you don't have an intent of actually finding a tree that day i know i have found a lot like that where i'm just walking along with some people and i say hey that's an american chestnut the important part the the more you search the more you study the topography of kentucky because chestnut trees grew from east to west from from the from the west virginia border to lbl land between lakes in the southern region chestnuts did not grow and still do not grow well in the bluegrass section of the state it's limestone and sweet soil the chestnuts wanted to find want to have sandstone soil generally a thousand feet and higher but we find them also at six and eight hundred feet as you kind of go toward the west um so so part of the fun of it is you now start searching things maps like all trail even your tree snap uh the on your computer you can navigate on the map to see and zoom in and zoom out it shows the contour map for example to show you the better places to hunt for american chestnuts so the search process once you've kind of covered an area then you want to branch out and find some other places or guide some other people to search yeah you start looking at all the trails you know especially the public lands across kentucky and in kentucky we're blessed with a lot of public land part of the fun is uh to get out the the fun of the hunt you know if you're a collector i'm a collector by nature collect certain things but the fun of the hunt the search is is really cool um again when you might cover a trail and go a good distance you're going gee there i'd be a chestnut tree here you're just not finding them you try to go over the points the rock cliffs and look down and finally you will get into an area that has several chests and trees that's good then the main thing we're searching for out there is trying to find larger trees we got a larger tree we'll look at here in a second but we're really looking for quantities of trees to help us in kentucky to help our scientists understand where they grow and of course obviously where they grew in the past um but we're also looking especially for larger trees that can bloom uh american chestnut trees bloom mid to late uh june every year well after the frost which is good prevents uh frost damage to their flowers and nuts so we're looking for those large trees to use in our breeding program uh the american chestnut trees in the wild they're so scattered and so few i mean a tree what we call a large american chestnut tree now is at least three or three and a half inches to to 10 inches to find an american chestnut tree past 10 inches in diameter before the blight kills it is really rare really really rare uh even to find one seven inches into in in bigger diameter breast height diameter breast height is really rare so when we find those few trees they're not close enough to pollinate each other so we'll find a tree here so for example from where we're standing there's a tree right here along the road then we have trees on the far ridge we have tree trees four miles out this way that that i have found through the tree snap process and hiking then we come back and check them to find out which ones are flowering we have to time it to the maximum ripeness of those flowers to gather pollen from one tree carry it you know process there's some processing carry to another tree like the tree right here to to pollinate by humans because they're too far apart for the insects or winds to pollinate so we're definitely looking for a number of trees but especially for the larger chestnut trees so if any of um the more hikers we have and we're going to talk about that more uh here here shortly but especially if somebody finds a larger chestnut tree you know four inches larger let us know uh because we sure want to come see that trees that we use in our breeding program you know ken you you you really hit on something extremely important there when you're looking for these trees you know so that you could could possibly use use the app at one time you know this this tree was extremely common you know you hear all this stuff you know one in four trees the reality four billion trees now we know from some of the recent research that we've got about one percent of that we've got maybe 438 million trees but most of those most of those trees have have a diameter of less than one inch and so you know what what you're going to do is most of the time when you're walking along that's about that's about you know you're going to these things are going to be at eye level they're not going to be very big if you find one of those small ones though the likelihood of looking up and seeing a larger one well you know it's that your chances have really increased right there and so again you know having that having that phone out being aware of how to use that you know walking along and you're taking pictures and you're hiking you're enjoying and all once you you see something that wow that's an american chestnut i wonder if there are any others there's kind of two parts to finding a tree that can flower so number one you're gonna find a lot of trees under the canopy in the shade and those are gonna be the smaller trees for sure because american chestnuts can can um kind of hang on grow very slowly under the canopy but chestnut trees grow best in the sunlight so so yeah so so i want to search to find an area you said it very well where are their chestnuts then i start looking for plot a few of those of course then i start looking for where is there sunlight where is there an opening so for example here we're right along uh the gravel tunnel ridge road just so happens to be a nice chestnut tree rod over here that has flowered we've collected pollen from the past three years but the main thing to find the larger trees is to find a sunlight opening that could be where some trees have fallen in the forest chestnuts if you have a sprout there will shoot up but i spend a lot of time going out on the cliff edges uh i don't get too close my feet start tingling so uh but i get close enough hang on a tree to you know some of the cliffs are sheer but a lot of the cliffs are kind of benches and um have chestnut trees growing there so when you have the cliffs you have a chance of the sunlight getting to the trees and a better chance of finding the larger trees that can bloom so that's part of again how to hunt you find quantities in under the canopy but we tend to find our larger trees where there's a sunlight opening and the other point you made is very good there's just not that many survivors but there are more survivors than the average person thinks when i run across some of the trails we start talking about chestnuts what are you doing kind of question i'll say i'm running american chestnuts oh i thought they were extinct well functionally they are in terms of they can't they they do very little pollinating to breed by seeds but fortunately that chestnut blight does not live in the soil and that lets the roots of the chestnuts continue to grow from the previous trees that have died then american chestnuts are copper sprouters in the buds at the root collar so chestnut trees are very good sprouters to send up new shoots alright so uh let's talk about a little bit more about the details of the process to chestnut hikins and search and if you're just kind of going for a little circle uh that's one thing if you're going for a full day hike some of my hikes have been i think the longest hike was 12 miles that was a pretty good hike including all the side little trips looking over the cliff points and that sort of thing so you got to be prepared for sure take a backpack because you want to carry water uh some snacks or lunch depending on your timing of coming to go into your car um i always wear snake and tick yards that i spray with um tick spray carry a spare battery because when you're out there again if you're out for a full day on a trail you can use up a battery uh pretty quickly it's good to have a spare of course take your american chestnut foundation hat they're available at www.acf.org uh for sure you want to take uh tick repellent and you want to take a nap repellent because those little suckers uh uh can be a nuisance in your eyes and ears if i'm going out in a rough area especially getting off the trails because justin's don't grow just right along the trails i take bear spray if i'm by myself because i'm not making noise to alert the bears or sometimes i'll beat my sticks on a tree or something to alert them i'm coming through a thick spot but you don't want to get between a mother bear or cubs kind of early in the year so i carry that just in case the other thing you want to carry is a little bit of string a ruler because one of the things you need to enter in your observations is the diameter at four and a half feet which is called dbh diameter breast height we don't have to have an exact measurement uh so you can either use a ruler you just gotta line up to get the outside edges of that circumference of the tree or if you want something more accurate to measure you can make you can put a string around the tree get your length then with your tape measure i carry a soft tape measure as well uh you can measure the tree from that there's any easy way to do it or you can carry a circumference tape uh really important uh whatever you do if you go chestnut hunting take a pair of binoculars not the self-focusing kind i have a pair of those but the kind you can focus in and out because when you're on the trails especially the trails are pretty easy to walk but a lot of places very rocky thick mountain laurel thick rhododendron perhaps maybe it's down over the cliff you want to be able to look out and check out that tree and we'll talk when we go to our tree in a minute how to see chestnut leaves wild american chestnut leaves but having this look down through the brush or out some distance saves you a lot of step and uh steps and sometimes saves you from having to climb down you know over the edge of a cliff to get to a train and then like jimmy has really made a good point always have that some place you're not gonna lose it i did lose my phone once temporarily because i have a habit of tapping my back pocket as i'm going out these trails tapped my back pocket one time where's my phone well i'd stop to eat lunch and laid it down gotta packed everything up except my phone anyway i had to hike a mile back to find it unfortunately still laying there but yeah you want to keep that phone someplace secure so ken here we are now nice large american chestnut large again like you said kind of a relative term but we're right here we're kind of in the shade but we're in the shade of this american chestnut it's growing right here beside a road notice the dead tree next to it likely that tree died and when it did this chestnut took advantage and shot up so you found this tree about what about three years ago that's right as a matter of fact the forest service pointed out to us the u.s forest service had found this street in one of their fia random plots and told uh told the chapter we came to it and found it so three years ago was three inches dbh or maybe just shy it's currently a little bit past three and a half inches dbh measured uh it's about 26 feet tall so here's a good place to talk in terms of how to do an observation uh so again the first thing we do once we find a tree and once we identify for sure and confirm its american chestnut then we can uh have right in my back pocket just happen to have my phone app then you would pull open your tree snap app right and we're not gonna be able to show this on on camera exactly but you choose from the various species in our case we're always going to choose american chestnut to enter the data so then there's a real easy menu here very user friendly as soon as you do one or two trees you're fully practiced so it's going to ask for pictures um we'll take well i i try to take at least three pictures of every tree the more interesting the tree is i might take another two or three so for example if it's a tree we might use our breeding because it's a larger tree it has some sunlight i might take four or five pictures if it's tree you know kind of a smaller tree and i'm seeing several in the area i might just take two but the most important thing is to confirm it's chestnut because again there's things out in the woods that look like american chestnuts right beach looks like american chestnut uh sawtooth oaks nor those are planted in parks those look like american chestnut so do be careful chinese chestnuts we don't want to tree snap chinese chestnuts we don't want them you know you're going to see those if you find a tree in somebody's backyard a park um some public planning a cemetery it's going to be almost always chinese justin so you want to again learn how to identify the american then we're going to take a picture of the top of the leaf plus the end of the the uh twig so by looking at the top of the leave and the end of that twig with the buds we can confirm if it's american or uh chinese or obviously if it's something else then it's always helpful to us to take a picture of the bottom of the leaves because american chestnuts do not have very many uh still late hairs on the bottom chinese chestnuts do so by taking those pictures um anybody who has a scientist somebody from the chapter or somebody trying to confirm your tree can pull up your pictures on the site we can tell real quick if it's american chestnut or not once that's complete then it just asks questions does it have nuts or burrs present does it have catkins present of course that'd be in the middle of the summer would have catkins potentially does it have chestnut blight yes or no then it's got a couple of descriptions to enter i hate to say it we just found out that our tree here has just just developed this summer blight at the very base of the tree um i've been watching this street for three years it's been amazing how smooth the bark has been and not allowed it to crack open to let that chest and blade get in but now the tree's a little bit larger the bark starts to fissure a little bit that's a perfect opening for the chestnut boy so our tree is now doomed that blight will spread around this particular tree it probably has one more year and then the blight will girdle the tree and kill it we make them back a mud packet trying to slow that down a little bit but we won't be able to save the street much longer next question that you wonder is uh is it a planet or wild tree well we know it's wild tree here how's the canopy health and there's some categories to enter tree diameter now for our citizen science purposes you can estimate but always estimate it four and a half feet above the soil level and once you measure a timer to you or pick a place on your body that's worn that feet that helps if everybody make enters the diameter at the very base at the tree swell they will overstate the size of the tree that will confuse our scientists in terms of how big that tree really is so that's always a four and a half feet now you can estimate it a little just practice a little bit with a ruler i always carry a small ruler so you can a little bit of practice you can line up the outer point uh the two outer points and get your diameter and that weighs nothing or if you want to be a little more accurate you can either use a circumference tape or you can simply wrap a string and then measure your string to get the exact diameter of the tree uh plotted from the circumference but an estimate is plenty good main point is don't overestimate that's uh that's common in the comments section i always add a few things like elevation i check the elevation of trees that's helpful for our scientists and for us to know where it's growing i'll add the aspect of the tree in other words what's what direction is the slope facing northeast south southwest whatever that is then i'll put what are the adjacent species in this case there's a dead red maple here uh some big league magnolias etc generally in the gorge and um uh uh berea college for example you're going to tend to find them growing with mountain laurel uh bigly what i call big leaf rhododendron or big laurel um in chestnut oaks and sourwoods also blueberries are very common if you find those species you're going to find american chestnuts i promise so i always enter those kind of comments and i also wonder how much sunlight does the tree have it's just an estimate in this case i would probably put this tree including the side light has about 90 sunlight which is what allowed this tree to flower these past three years and again we've collected pollen the past three years now here's the most important point of all i learned i learned this the hard way that is once you enter your snap be sure that you after you've done all that be sure that you hit this little button down at the bottom that says save be sure you do that or guess what happens it doesn't save so that's pretty much the process how to tree snap then again the cool part is as we kind of said earlier once you have entered several data points your tree snap gets more interesting because now you can go back and look zoom in and zoom out where was i what part of the contour ridge was i on where can i go next there were chestnuts in the area right here we suspected it we walked over here and the first thing i saw was probably a chestnut oak and that's and that's a that's a good indicator specie because many of those areas that were once dominated by the american chestnuts now have a lot of red oak and chestnut and i looked and down here at foot level was an american chestnut and then i'd start looking up and i saw two two about eye level american chestnuts and right here i look up and here's here's one that's that's more than 30 foot tall thanks for joining me today and learning a little bit more about hunting for american chestnut and reporting those findings with the tree snap app i hope you get out in your woods and hunt for some chestnut who knows maybe the trees that you find will be part of a future that has more chestnut in it if you have any questions please reach out to us get in touch with us online or follow us on social media

Channel: KY Forest Health

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Id: QkTRB-Y9LrI

Length: 24min 30sec (1470 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 03 2022