[getsmart-l] Renewing Elms (in memory of Henry Kock) and American Chestnut Recovery Program

[John O'Gorman]

NATURE : BREEDING A FUNGUS-FREE GROVE 
A dating service for lonely elms

BY SHARON OOSTHOEK GUELPH, ONT. Globe and Mail Dec. 8/07
http://www.uoguelph.ca/arboretum/SpProjects/Elm_Recover1.htm 
If you know of large elms in your area or if you wish to support this unique project, please click here to print the Elm Recovery Reporting Form . 

Come winter. most tree huggers wax poetic about towering pines or stands of silvery birch. But Alan Watson is awed at the sight of a small patch of saplings. He hopes they will grow into an umbrella-shaped canopy - and revive a stately species that has nearly been wiped out. 

The trees are elms, once found across the continent but devastated by a fungus that has killed millions of trees in Canada and the United States. Dutch elm disease, like some arboreal version of AIDS, may have been North America's greatest forest scourge until the recent attack of the mountain pine beetle. 

It reached Eastern Canada during the last world war, hitting Ontario especially hard. But about nine years ago, researchers at the University of Guelph's arboretum noticed that a smattering of mature white or American elms, some of them hundreds of years old, had survived across the province. 

Somehow they had resisted the fungus. However, what they can't do, being so isolated from each other, is reproduce and pass on their hardy genes. That's why Prof. Watson, director of the arboretum, has mounted a public campaign he calls his elm "dating service." 

His goal was to locate the mature elms and help the best candidates mingle and mate. So far, Prof. Watson has received 1,800 reports. And now he and Guelph horticulturalist Sean Fox are taking cuttings from the most eligible singles and creating clones. 

DUTCH IN NAME ONLY 
If all goes well, the clones will be able to resist a fungus that would otherwise choke their vascular tissues and shut down the circulation of water and nutrients. 

It was first identified in Belgium in 1918 (it got its name because it was isolated by a Dutch pathologist) and reached North America in logs imported from Eastern Europe. It was then spread by elm beetles. Trees in the Ohio Valley were the first to succumb, in the 1930S, but over the next few decades the beetles carried the fungus north and by the 1960s the disease had cut a swath through both forests and cities, where elms were often planted in tight rows because they could tolerate harsh street conditions. 

The survivors were trees that were able to seal off infected branches. According to Prof. Watson, an environmental biologist, such trees appear to have just the right mix of genes to fight off the fungus. He and his colleagues have cloned them by taking hundreds of cuttings and grafting them on to hardy root stock. 

Then the clones are incubated and encouraged to grow for about three years - at which point they are turned over to University of Toronto forestry scientist Martin Hubbes, who repeatedly injects them with Dutch elm disease to make sure they are resistant. 

"They're really getting their butts kicked," Mr. Fox says. "They recover and then we give them another strong dose. It's like giving them SARS after getting over the flu." 

While he and Prof. Watson have lost some of the clones to such injections, most have survived and roughly 30 are now planted in the University of Guelph's seed orchard. 

Other recently acquired clones, in some cases created from 250-year-old "super elms" nearing the end of their lifespan, are also expected to join them after a round of inoculation. 

Once all these clones are old enough to produce flowers - in about 10 years - they will be crossbred to create seedlings and immunized again. The 

aim is to make truly resistant seeds and seedlings available to the public within 20 years. 

"Seeing the way things are developing here, it's more than a glimmer of hope," Prof. Watson says. "I think this project has a good chance." 

Still, some researchers are taking a different approach. The Elm Research Institute in New Hampshire, for example, has produced six resistant clones called Liberty elms each cultivar genetically pure instead of crossbred for diversity. So far, they have sent out 250,000 trees to individuals and community groups across North America. 

But critics say such clones may not have the genetic depth to resist new scourges. And, indeed, Dutch elm disease has been reported in some Liberty elms. "We're trying to follow nature's rules," Mr. Fox says. "And nature's rule is biodiversity. We're getting a lot of good genes together." 

Dale Simpson also prefers the Guelph method. He believes that new combinations of genes may create a generation of elms more resistant to illness "than either parent" and he is overseeing a small experimental nursery of the clones for the Canadian Forest Service just outside Fredericton. 

GENETIC DIVERSITY A PLUS 
Joanna Freeland, a molecular ecologist at Trent University, adds that the Guelph system also may provide greater insurance against the effects of climate change. "If you've got lots of genetic diversity, there's a greater likelihood one or more individuals will have the right combination of genes to adapt." 

Of course, even if Guelph's dating and mating project succeeds, it will be decades before its orchard produces the impressive elms of yesteryear. But neither of the scientists behind the project seems fazed that he may not live to see the fruits of their labour. 

Mr. Fox quotes an ancient Greek proverb: "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." )) Sharon Oosthoek is a science writer in Toronto. 

Circling the wagons 
Alberta and British Columbia are among the few areas in the world still free of Dutch elm disease. To stay that way, residents of wild rose country are asked to: 

- Report infected trees quickly, and burn, bury or chip elm wood immediately (chips no bigger than 2.5 centimetres). 

- Keep elms well watered and prune deadwood between Oct. 1 and March 31, not in summer, when elm bark beetles are active. 

- Avoid bringing elm firewood or logs into Alberta as they may carry the beetles and the fungus. 

- Do not store elm wood, which would provide beetles with a breeding area. 

II Source: Alberta Ministry of Agriculture and Food 
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http://www.grandriver.ca/index/document.cfm?Sec=48&Sub1=2
Recovery Program

      Nursery Manager Bruce Graham (left) and volunteer Elton Papple examine a chestnut tree.
     
Some of the activities at the Burford Nursery were undertaken as part of a Chestnut Recovery Program led by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association.

Assistance was also provided by a number of other farm organizations, environmental wildlife groups, government and agencies, most notably the GRCA.

Partial financial support for the project was supplied by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Canadian Adaptation and Rural Development Fund (CARD), through the National Soil and Water Conservation Program administered by the Agricultural Adaptation Council and the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition. Additional funding has been provided by Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Wildlife Habitat Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. 

Financial support was also provided by the Grand River Conservation Foundation.

The Canadian Chestnut Council and the Norfolk Field Naturalists have invested considerable time and resources to collect and distribute scientific information on the American chestnut.

Information on the current National Chestnut Recovery Program is available from the Canadian Chestnut Council.

Links
  a.. Canadian Chestnut Council  
  b.. American Chestnut Foundation 
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