North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>]

Tho I'm about 40 miles from Steve, I'm in a completely different (4b)
zone.  I've got Layeroka & Skioka varieties going that have been
producing nuts for 5-6 years.  In the early years they definitely
showed signs of being hit by blight, branches dying back & several
dying back to the ground, but they have all started growing more
vigorously than the blight & seem to be doing fine.

I also just came on some chinese chestnuts whose nuts are almost twice
the size /weight of the ones I'm growing.  These trees are the same
age as mine & seem equally resistent to blight.  My neighbor, Mark
Shepard, who grows acres & acres of various chestnuts, claimed to me
once that there is no such thing as a blight "free" chestnut.

~mIEKAL


On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 10:16 AM, Road's End Farm
<organic87@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrienne Bordo" <beartown@toast.net>
>> To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 6:39 PM
>> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] pawpaw seed and a new question
>>
>>
>>>
>>> The other question I have concerns American Chestnut. To my knowledge,
>>> they were never native in this area (just over the border from western
>>> VT), but maybe someone could confirm that. A company in British
>>> Columbia is selling seeds from the West Coast that would not be
>>> carrying the blight. Any ideas on what the chances would be for
>>> growing Chestnuts here in Zone 4b?
>
> St. Lawrence Nurseries, in Zone 3, is offering blight resistant American
> Chestnut: descendents of trees found near Watertown NY in the 1970's "which,
> although blighted, healed over their cankers and continued to produce seed
> for many years. These 4th generation seedlings . . . are likely to exhibit
> even more resistance"
>
> http://www.sln.potsdam.ny.us/
>
> If there was never any blight in your area, I'd talk to Bill MacKentley (who
> runs St. Lawrence) as to whether these seedlings may be carrying the blight;
> as if they are it would seem a bad idea to introduce them -- but their
> existence in zone 3 (St. Lawrence grows what they sell) certainly seems to
> indicate that at least some of the original gene pool was hardy through zone
> 4 and beyond. Whether the West Coast strain is as hardy is a question, of
> course; again, Bill might be able to shed some light on this.
>
>
>
> -- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
> Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
>