On 12/31/2018 6:18 PM, Sonny wrote:
On Sunday, December 30, 2018 at 2:15:06 PM UTC-6, dpb wrote:
On 12/30/2018 1:31 PM, Sonny wrote:
As I understand, original trees or growth will sprout from root/trunk stock, but after about 5 years, the blight will kill them.

The blight bug.....

Actually, it's not an insect but a fungus... Chryphonectria parasitica

Yeah, I used the wrong word. My concern is, no matter what plant(s) I get, how can I know, for sure, the fungus (dormant or not) is not in the soil or embedded in the plant, itself.

Seems no one knows, for sure, where the fungus may be residing in any particular scenario. Seems it has multiple venues of transport and multiple host paths, i.e., the soil, air, water or *plants, for infecting. As to *Plants, there may be plants, other than chestnut, where the fungus can reside, in limbo.

There's this tree in Tumwater, Wash.
https://tgaw.wordpress.com/2011/06/0...er-washington/

Link above, the guy's Flickr page:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tgaw/s...7626719600594/
These trees don't seem to be typical tall trees, with branches starting high up. There's no confirming they aren't hybrid. Supposedly, west of the Rockies old trees are blight and hybrid free.

Anywhere in the East in the original native range I think you can simply
presume the fungus is present in some form or the other and probably far
beyond that.

Indeed, there are numerous plants with varying levels of
tolerance/resistance; some of the most promising work I was aware of had
to do with the idea of gene splicing from wheat cultivars.

West of the Rockies, any chestnut you find is an exotic; they aren't
native. You can probably eliminate the Tumwater specimens as being
hybrids simply from their age as before anybody was working on the
project.

That they aren't fully typical isn't too surprising to me; who knows
what sort of childhood they had being in the park that may have
influenced their growth plus Tumwater, WA, isn't the Eastern
Appalachians (albeit it is interesting that the understory growth of the
Coastal Range out there is very much similar to that of the Blue Ridge
and Smokies; simply that the dominant species are the Doug fir and
hemlocks instead of oaks and other hardwoods.

By coincidence, my younger daughter happens to be in Tumwater and has
been for 20 years+ now...I'll have to investigate when we're there next;
I wasn't aware of them; not sure whether she is or not.

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