To: breen@fedcoseeds.com, North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc:
Subject: [NAFEX] American chestnut
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 08:37:02 -0500
At 08:16 AM 6/16/2004 -0500, Heron wrote:
I still wonder whether the Chestnut will ever be more than functionally
extinct,
since its habitat niche has been filled by other species in the last 50+
years.
Good point. Even oaks, which largely filled some of the niche vacated by
the loss of the American chestnut following the introduction of the blight
fungus, are having difficulty maintaining their foothold in some areas, as
red & sugar maple make inroads into the forests, and become an increasingly
prominent portion of the forest population. Maple seedlings are much more
shade-tolerant than are oak & hickory seedlings, and in some areas, the
understory of some forests is predominantly maple, with those maple
seedlings skyrocketing once the mature canopy of oak & hickory are removed
by timber harvest or storm damage, with the maples outstripping what the
oak & hickory seedlings that may be present, and ultimately shading
out/outcompeting many of them.