Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting: Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting: Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
Regarding the susceptibility to the blight of the European or Spanish
Chestnut (_C. sativa_) we have had the following experience. Our winter
temperatures appear to be too severe for this species. Dying back is
sure to occur, at least at our Hamden, Connecticut plantations, marked
more or less according to the degree of cold; and on the dead parts
_Endothia_ then appears, to later invade the parts still living. In 1932
I received nuts of _C. sativa_ from France from Professor Hochreutiner
of the Geneva Botanic Garden, from Professor Uldrich of the Berlin
Botanic Garden, and also from France from Dr. Guillaumin of the Jardin
de Plantes at Paris. Although I have given the resulting plants much
attention they continually die back each year so that we have only two
or three individuals that are more than six feet high. But Professor
Pavari says in recent correspondence (July 15, 1947) "Referring to
Spanish chestnuts, after we have been assured that the fungus we have
found and observed on _Castanea crenata_ in Spain is really _Endothia
parasitica_, we must admit that our hypothesis may be exact that
_Castanea vesca_ [_sativa_] presents in Spain races or types resistant
to the disease." He goes on to say that the fact that the chestnut
blight is so widespread at Naples and Avellino is at variance with my
theory that cold winters are the predisposing cause, for in the regions
mentioned the winters are mild and "very warm in comparison with those
of Connecticut." The essential fact seems to be that the European or
Spanish chestnut is very susceptible to the blight, perhaps as much so
as is our native species, but that evidently certain individuals or
races exist that are more or less resistant.
During the early part of 1947 we had a visit from Professor Cristos
Moulopoulos of the University of Salonika, Greece. Although the disease
had not then appeared in Greece, the pathologists there would like to be
ready for it when it does come.
_Pollinations in 1946 and 1947._ Without going into details, the general
purpose of the pollinations during these last two years has been to
incorporate more and more of the resistant Chinese stock into our
hybrids. Beginning in 1937, we crossed our best Japanese-American
hybrids with Chinese, and we now have a considerable number of young
saplings of flowering age, which have the pedigree: Chinese x
Japanese-American. Unfortunately, in this cross the Chinese is usually
dominant as regards habit, but not always. We have some tall,
straight-growing individuals of this combination which may well be the
forerunners of a blight-resistant forest stock for America.
Therefore, during 1946 and 1947 we have been crossing these fine Chinese
x (Japanese-Americans) with the following:
1. Our best Chinese
2. American-Chinese and Chinese-American
3. American (C. dentata)
4. Our best Japanese-Americans
5. Among themselves
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