In Search of Resistant Butternuts

A program is trying to save another
native tree that’s being wiped out by an invasive
fungus. People who like the butternut are hoping
that by planting more seedlings, and tracking
mature trees, they’ll find some are resistant
to a blight that’s killing the butternuts.
Lucy Martin reports:

Transcript

A program is trying to save another
native tree that’s being wiped out by an invasive
fungus. People who like the butternut are hoping
that by planting more seedlings, and tracking
mature trees, they’ll find some are resistant
to a blight that’s killing the butternuts.
Lucy Martin reports:


Butternuts are rich in history. Native Americans used the tree for
medicine and dye. They ate the nuts. During the Civil War, so many
Confederates used the tree’s yellow-brown dye to make home-spun
uniforms that their army picked up the nickname “butternuts.”


Wood ducks, finches and songbirds eat the tree’s spring buds. The fall
nut crop feeds woodpeckers, turkeys, squirrels and other wildlife.
The tree’s hard wood resembles walnut, but with a lighter, golden tone.
That’s why it’s sometimes called “white walnut.”


The trees are seriously threatened by butternut canker, an invasive,
airborne fungus. The blight was first noted in Wisconsin in 1967. In
some states, up to 90% of all butternuts are now affected, but there’s
work underway to try to save the butternut before it’s wiped out.


Tucked in an old orchard, a cold-storage room serves as a distribution
station. Each spring, this is where the Rideau Valley Conservation
Authority gives away seedling trees to the public. Project technician
Rose Fleguel gave me the tour:


“So, I think there’s about 100,000 seedlings here. These are boxed or
bagged so that the trees stay moist and dark. We’ve already spent two
days re-packing into individual landowner tree orders.”


At this time of year, the dormant seedlings just look like twiggy
sticks. Many are still wrapped in brown paper sacks. Conservation
agencies plant all kinds of trees. But sometimes they target very
specific problems, like butternut canker.


“My thing is the Butternut Recovery Project, whatever amount of land
can sustain 10 seedlings, then you’re free to take the seedlings and
plant them out. ‘Cause what we’d like to do is get the seedlings out on
the landscape, get them growing. Replace the ones that have been killed
by this disease, already, and that continue to be killed, and hope for,
I mean, it’s going to be, it’s going to be a shot in the dark, but hope
that maybe some of these seedlings might be resistant.”


“Hope” is the key word. It’s not clear whether any butternuts are
resistant to the canker blight. The seedlings being handed out are
from trees that are still healthy. This recovery program also maps
mature trees and keeps track of the ones that still seem to be canker-
free. It’s a long shot, called “find the resistance.”


Rudy Dyck is the Director of the local Watershed Stewardship Services.
He says you can usually see if a butternut has been attacked by the
disease:


“Look for black patches, black streaks, black sooty areas on
the main stem, at the root collar, and always look on the underside of
the large branches, because that seems to be where the canker first
infects.”


“And if you notice that, is there anything to be done?”


“No, there’s nothing you can do. We’re asking people to keep them, as
long as they can. But one of the reasons that butternut is in such
extreme danger of extinction is that it just does not regenerate very
well.”


Dyck says that’s why it’s important to conserve existing trees.
Butternuts don’t bear seed each and every year. And when they do, the
nuts tend to get gobbled up. Growing new butternuts takes a few tricks:


“You have to stratify them, or prepare them for growing, the next
spring. So they have to spend a few months in kind of freezing
temperatures, an un-insulated garage in a pot of peat moss, or
something. Another strategy some people do, is they bury the nuts in
the fall, and they cover them with chicken wire, and then that protects
them from squirrels during that fall period and, as they start to grow
next spring, you can transplant them.”


Dyck says US and Canadian agencies are sharing ideas and results
because diseases don’t stop at borders:


“There’s literally thousands and thousands of heavily cankered, dying
butternuts out there, and we really want to focus on looking at
healthy, canker-free trees. Because those are the trees we want to get
into our geo-data base, for future seed collection, those are the trees
that may hold some resistance and those are the trees we want to
track.”


Butternut canker isn’t a well-known problem. The beautiful trees are
too big for most yards. They’re usually sparsely scattered in forests,
or old farmsteads. But Dyck says the butternut has an important place
in nature.


“There’s no question, bio-diversity and having many, many types of
ecosystems, habitats, species. They all interact, they all count on
each other, and it all makes for a healthier environment and place for
us all to live.”


Many native trees such as the chestnut, elm, and now the ash, are under
attack from invasive diseases or pests. The butternut is yet another
tree biologists want to save for future generations.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lucy Martin.

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Historic Castle Fortifies Great Lakes Research

During the summer, lots of people visit the Lake Erie islands at the southwest end of the lake. But there’s one island you can’t visit. It’s the site of a historic home and reserved for scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant recently visited Gibraltar Island and files this report:

Transcript

During the summer, lots of people visit the Lake Erie islands at the southwest end of the
lake. But there’s one island you can’t visit. It’s the site of a historic home and reserved
for scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant recently visited
Gibraltar Island and files this report:


(sound of ferry)


Visitors taking the ferry to Lake Erie’s popular South Bass Island can see a castle-like
structure through the trees on Gibraltar Island across the bay. But they can’t go there.
The island is owned by Ohio State University and home to a research lab called Stone
Laboratory.


Recently, a few reporters got to go where usually only scientists go.


(sound on boat)


Lab Director Jeff Reutter is taking soil samples from the lake bottom to show some of the
latest concerns about blue-green algae… an algae that’s toxic to some aquatic life and
makes drinking water taste bad. It’s been appearing more frequently and scientists think
the zebra mussel might be causing it.


(more boat sounds)


Researchers and students from Ohio State and elsewhere study invasive species,
pollution, shoreline erosion, and other ecological lake issues at the lab.


(sound inside castle)


The scientists who worked in the lab used to live in the structure next door, known as
Cooke’s Castle. The large home was built in the 1860’s by the family of Jay Cooke.


Cooke was not a scientist. He was a banker and investment broker, and he played a
major role in raising money for the Union Army during the Civil War. Cooke came up
with the idea of selling war bonds and raised a billion dollars for the Union Army.


Cooke bought the seven-acre Gibraltar Island in 1864 and had his summer home built on
it. Ironically, while the Union fund-raiser was vacationing on his island, Confederate
soldiers were imprisoned on nearby Johnson’s Island.


Retired Ohio State Administrator John Kleberg has been researching Jay Cooke. He says
Cooke was an avid hunter and fisherman, so Kleberg suspects he would be pleased to see
the science lab there today.


“There is a penciled correspondence where Cooke is complaining about the reduction in
the population of the fish, the bass specifically, I think, because people are net fishing,
you know where they’re taking too many fish out of the lake and the bass population
therefore is decreasing. And that’s not the way you ought to protect the bass population.
So obviously in that context he was sensitive about the need for conservation and how we
fish and how we protect fish populations. So I suspect he would be very pleased with the
kind of work that’s being done.”


Cooke’s daughter sold Gibraltar in 1925 to Franz Stone, whose family donated it to Ohio
State.


Outside, the four-story limestone turret’s crenellated top gives the appearance of a castle.
The inner rotunda walls have held up surprisingly well over 140 years.


But after years of use, the building is in need of some major repairs. Lab Director
Reutter wants to renovate the 15 room building into a conference center.


“It’s interesting too, Cooke’s, one of his sons, was an amateur photographer, and we’ve
got great photos of how the place looked at that time, so obviously that’s our goal to take
it back.”


(ambient sound inside castle runs underneath this section.)


The castle includes a spiral staircase and there’s a gorgeous wood-paneled library that
overlooks the bay…


Reutter: “So, obviously, this would be my office…” (laughter)


Ohio State University is looking for money to make renovations. But that’s proved
challenging. The castle will never be open to the public. Lab Director Reutter says that’s
not its purpose…


“Oh no, this would not be used for tourists, this is an education and an outreach facility,
so it would be a conference center but it would be for research conferences, education
conferences, Great Lakes management, this will never be open to the public.”


It’ll cost two and a half million dollars to make the renovations. If they can find the
money, Reutter and the university say Cooke’s castle will become an even more
important research center. One he expects to draw scientists to study the problems facing
the Great Lakes.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

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Farm Eases Transition for Refugees

People who come to the United States to escape persecution in their home country often face two major adjustments: Life in a new country, and life—for the first time—in a major city. A farm in Illinois takes part in a program designed to ease that transition. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:

Transcript

People who come to the United States to escape persecution in their
home country
often face two major adjustments: Life in a new country, and life—for
the first
time—in a major city. A farm in Illinois takes part in a program
designed to ease
that transition. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman
reports:


The demons of torture were threatening to rob Thaddee Essomba of his
life.
Essomba was a political activist in the West African nation of
Cameroon.
Someone evidently didn’t share Essomba’s views, and they wanted to make
him
pay.


Essomba fled Cameroon, leaving behind his home, his family, and
everything he
knew. He didn’t stop running until he arrived in Chicago.


Chicago was unlike anything Essomba had ever seen. Skyscrapers,
apartment
complexes and elevated trains were all new to him. Miles and miles of
concrete
and asphalt surrounded him. Adjusting to life in the city was almost
as difficult as
adjusting to life in a new country. All this, while trying to recover
from the
physical and psychological scars of torture.


Then, Thaddee Essomba discovered the farm.


(sound of farm fades in)


“For me to come here is really to go back to the source. Because when
you live in
the city, you know you get a little bit, you like to be in touch with
the nature. And
really I was missing that.”


(sound of goats)


The farm is called Angelic Organics. For the past decade it’s been
hosting visitors
from the Marjorie Kovler Center for Survivors of Torture in Chicago.
The Center
helps people fleeing persecution to recover and re-settle in the United
States.
People come to the center from all over the world. Many of them are
from rural
areas and aren’t used to living in a city.


Tom Spaulding is a former volunteer at the Kovler Center. He now works
at
Angelic Organics Farm. He says a visit to the farm can be a key stop
on the road
to recovery for torture victims.


“They’re living now in Chicago in a huge metropolitan area, and they’re
from rural
backgrounds, and some of them are farmers. And to be on a farm that’s
somewhat
like what they were used to back home—because it’s a small farm, it’s
diversified
vegetables and livestock. And so it’s, maybe it’s just because it
touches a lot of
things from peoples’…what was familiar from back home. And maybe that
in a
sense helps.”


For many of the people here, it’s a familiar setting. John Fallah
fled a civil war in
Liberia two years ago. He had to leave his family behind when he
escaped.
While he says he enjoys life in Chicago because he doesn’t feel
threatened
anymore, Fallah says the farm reminds him of home…


“I’m very much impressed of what I am seeing on this farm. There is no
difference from how we do the farming in Africa and here.”


(sound of chickens, goats)


This was Fallah’s first visit to the farm. Some of the Kovler Center’s
clients have
made the 80-mile trip from Chicago many times. Thaddee Essomba says
the farm
has become an important part of his life.


“When I came here you know I feel myself very relaxed. I enjoy myself,
you
know, my soul was really in touch with the nature, and I feel very
happy you
know and why sometime every year I try to come back to be, to feel that
sensation.”


For Essomba and the other survivors of torture, that sensation can be
an important
part of the healing process.


Essomba has even found a way to give back to the community surrounding
the
farm. He’s been teaching area kids about life in his native country.
It’s a land far
away, a place the kids have probably even never heard of. But as
Essomba has
learned, the nation of Cameroon has some very important things in
common with
the rural Midwest.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.

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