Interview: Helping Honeybees

  • Honey bees pollinate a wide variety of crops throughout the growing season. (Photo courtesy of Scott Bauer, USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Honeybees are in trouble. They’ve been pestered by invasive mites. There are concerns about how agricultural chemicals might be affecting bees. And in recent years there’s been growing concern about the disappearance of honeybees. It’s called Colony Collapse Disorder. Lester Graham talked with Christy Hemenway with Gold Star Honeybees, based in Bath, Maine. Gold Star manufactures bee hives for beekeepers.

Transcript

Honeybees are in trouble. They’ve been pestered by invasive mites. There are concerns about how agricultural chemicals might be affecting bees. And in recent years there’s been growing concern about the disappearance of honeybees. It’s called Colony Collapse Disorder. Lester Graham talked with Christy Hemenway with Gold Star Honeybees, based in Bath, Maine. Gold Star manufactures bee hives for beekeepers.

Lester Graham: Beekeepers expect to lose about fifteen percent of their bees over the winter, but for the past four years a survey by the USDA and the Apiary Inspectors of America has found that winter die-off has been about thirty percent. What’s going on here?

Christy Hemenway: Good question. One of the trickiest things about the Colony Collapse Disorder that most people have heard something about…is it’s difficult to study because it’s primary symptom is that the bees simply disappear from the hive. So there’s not a lot left behind to take to the lab and look at the details. So its primary symptom being that they disappear then the question would be why? and where are they going? That leaves us looking at conditions that bees are being raised in, and what are we doing to them, and with them, and it has left a lot of people scratching their heads, you might say. I think that a shift in the way we look at bees and possibly in the way we farm. If we were to begin farming in a way that supported bees it would begin to eliminate a lot of these things that are sort of dog-piling because it’s just a lot to ask a small insect to carry. And if we could do one less thing wrong, or one thing a little less wrong, then I think that we could really start to turn the tide.

Graham: When you say change farming, what do you mean by that?

Hemenway: Well the idea of industrial agriculture, or mono-cropping, where we’re growing, for instance, if you want to pick on a pretty large target, the California almond groves–it’s about 700-thousand acres of nothing but almonds. It creates an interesting situation. First off, you have to understand that almond trees bloom for just about 22 days out of the year. So if you’re a bee living in the middle of 700-thousand acres of almond trees, what do you plan to eat for the other three hundred and forty-some days of the year? So we’ve created the migratory pollination situation by having to bring bees in to these trees because there’s no way for them to be supported for the rest of the year. So if you’re farm is diverse and has things that bloom throughout the course of the bee season, when you’ve got warm enough weather, then you’re gonna find that your bees have got something to do, and something to eat, something to forage on all year round instead of for twenty two days which means you’ve gotta get ‘em out of there after that twenty-two days.

Graham: Short of keeping bees, is there anything else we can do that can help this situation?

Hemenway: Buy raw local honey from a local beekeper, maybe at a farmer’s market. That’s a great beginning. Another thing is: let your dandelions stand. Dandelions are fantastic–

Graham: Really?

Hemenway: Oh yeah, that’s great bee food, and it’s also some of the earliest food of the season. So don’t run out there with the lawnmower or the weed killer at the first sign of a dandelion, let that stuff go. Because it’s just natural, easy food, you don’t have to plant things for bees, the stuff that comes up all on it’s own is great stuff. So if you’re in any situation where you can let a lawn go a little more towards a meadow instead of a sculpted, barren, green bee-desert, do that. It’s really a wonderful thing to watch happen, first of all, and it’s just good for bees, to let them have that natural forage.

Graham: I’d love you to talk to my neighbors, that would be great.

Hemenway: Why, are they mowing down their dandelions?

Graham: Well they’re frowning at mine, let’s put it that way.

Hemenway: Oh, shame on them.

Graham: Christy Hemenway is with Gold Star Honeybees, thanks very much for talking with us.

Hemenway: You bet, thank you.

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Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future (Part 2)

  • The coal industry hopes the federal government will help them find a way to catch and store the carbon coming from smokestacks.

The coal industry got hit with expensive
pollution restrictions almost two decades ago. Now, the government’s considering putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. Coal companies think they have a technological solution in a test project called FutureGen. In the
second part of our series on the future of coal, Shawn Allee looks at why they
have such high hopes for it:

Transcript

The coal industry got hit with expensive
pollution restrictions almost two decades ago. Now, the government’s considering putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. Coal companies think they have a technological solution in a test project called FutureGen. In the
second part of our series on the future of coal, Shawn Allee looks at why they
have such high hopes for it:

The last time the federal government put a price on coal pollution was in 1990.

Power plants had to start paying for sulphur dioxide that came out of smoke stacks and caused acid rain.

To clean up, many burned cleaner coal.

That was bad news for Illinois miner Chris Nielsen.

He happened to mine some of the dirtiest coal.

“A good portion of the economy around here was built on coal industry. And coal mining jobs not only paid a good wage, they had terrific benefits. And as the industry went soft, people lost the best jobs they ever had.”

Cleanup technology improved, but it took nearly two decades to make burning the highest-sulpher coal economical again.

Nielsen says today, coal executives worry they’ll lose profits if the government prices carbon dioxide.

And coal miners worry they’ll lose jobs again.

The industry wants new plants that do two things: first, they capture carbon dioxide while burning coal, and then bury, or sequester this carbon dioxide – so it stays out of the atmosphere.

Nielsen says there’s a plant like that in the works, it’s called FutureGen.

“We can burn the coal in a clean, environmentally friendly manner. The FutureGen project where they were going to sequester the carbon dioxide was a terrific opportunity to show that.”

Well, Nielsen’s jumping the gun.

FutureGen hasn’t proved anything; it’s not even built.

The coal industry and the government were supposed to design and fund FutureGen, then build it in Central Illinois.

The government and coal companies fought over how much the plant would cost but now, it’s likely to move forward.

Even with a sketchy history though, the industry’s got almost no choice but to be hopeful for FutureGen.

The industry wants carbon dioxide capture and sequestration to work – otherwise, it’s gonna pay big for carbon pollution.

Not everyone’s so confident in the technology.

“We can not depend on carbon capture and sequestration to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reductions because we don’t know whether it’s going to work.”

That’s Ron Burke, with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

He says FutureGen is worth testing but it shouldn’t distract us from technology we know is low-carbon.

“There are ways to meet the greenhouse gas reductions targets that we need to meet without carbon capture and sequestration. We can do it, it’s primarily through in investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency in the near term.”

There’re energy researchers who aren’t so sure enough renewable energy like wind and solar will be available soon enough.

One is of them is Ernest Moniz at MIT.

“We have a ways to go for let’s say, solar, to scale up. Right now, it’s less than point 1% of our electricity.”

Coal generates nearly half our electricity.

Moniz says it won’t be easy to replace, but it might be possible to improve it.

He says its likely carbon dioxide capture and sequestration can work technically.

But he says we need to build FutureGen to answer whether it works efficiently and economically.

“Well, if we are going to establish a new technology, like sequestration, and be able to have it not only demonstrated but then deployed and implemented, that means we would need to start, preferably yesterday, but at worst, today.”

For Moniz, FutureGen could be clean coal’s first major test – not just of whether it works – but whether it’s too expensive.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future (Part 3)

  • Engineering Professor Rich Axelbaum studies his "oxy-coal combustor," a device he hopes could someday trap CO2 in coal-fired power plants. (Photo by Matt Sepic)

Coal has a reputation as a sooty, dirty fuel. More recently, environmentalists and the coal industry alike have become just as worried about the carbon dioxide released when coal is burned. In the third part of our series on the future of coal, Matt Sepic has this look at the science behind so-called “clean coal”:

Transcript

Coal has a reputation as a sooty, dirty fuel. More recently, environmentalists and the coal industry alike have become just as worried about the carbon dioxide released when coal is burned. In the third part of our series on the future of coal, Matt Sepic has this look at the science behind so-called “clean coal”:

As far as most leaders of the coal industry are concerned, the debate about global warming is over. It exists, carbon dioxide contributes to it, and it’s a crisis. But as they’re quick to point out, nearly half the nation’s electricity comes from coal. It’s domestic. It’s relatively cheap. And there’s a lot of it.

Steve Leer is the CEO of Arch Coal. Leer says unless Americans want that power to get really expensive, coal will have to remain part of the equation. But he says something has to be done about all that carbon dioxide.

If we don’t solve that CO2 question, the backlash of high cost electricity becomes an issue for all of us.

Arch Coal is the nation’s second largest coal producer. It’s paying for research into carbon capture and storage. The idea is to divert CO2 from smokestacks, compress it, and then pump it underground.

Engineering professor Rich Axelbaum is studying this with money from Steve Leer’s company. In his lab at Washington University in St. Louis, Axelbaum and two students are tweaking a device they call an oxy-coal combustor.

RA: “It’s a relatively small scale, quite a small scale for industrial, but it’s a relatively large scale for a university.”

MS: “It looks like a few beer kegs stacked end to end and welded together.”

RA: “Right, right.”

Axelbaum can burn coal inside this furnace along with a variety of combustion gases. He’s trying to figure out exactly how much oxygen to inject to yield pure carbon dioxide.

“We can capture the CO2 from a combustion process, by instead of the burning the coal in air, you’re burning it in oxygen, so the stream coming out of the exhaust is CO2.

Axelbaum says there’s no sense in filling valuable underground storage space with CO2 mixed with other gases if a power plant is built that can grab nearly pure carbon dioxide and store it.

He says energy companies already pump CO2 underground to extract crude oil, so some of the technology already exists. But environmentalists say the next step – which is crucial for any so-called clean coal power plant to work– is far from proven.

“No one knows in the industry whether in fact they can sequester carbon permanently.”

David Orr teaches Environmental Science at Oberlin College in Ohio. He says storing CO2 underground is easier said than done. And nobody knows if rock formations in different parts of the country can hold the huge amounts of carbon dioxide America’s power plants produce without it eventually leaking out.

Orr says because the goal is to reduce global warming, politicians would be better off funding research into other energy alternatives.

The metric here is how much carbon do we eliminate per dollar spent on research and deployment of technology?

Orr says the 3.4 billion dollars set aside for clean coal research in the federal stimulus bill would be better spent studying wind and solar power, modernizing the nation’s electrical grid, and finding ways to improve energy efficiency.

But the United States still has more than a century’s worth of coal reserves. And with plenty of money going into both research and advertising, talk of carbon capture and storage is certain to continue, even if it remains just that.

For The Environment Report, I’m Matt Sepic.

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Wind Tax Credit Blowing Away?

  • Wind companies want taxpayer help (Photo courtesy of the Department of Energy)

The wind power industry has been growing.
But to keep growing, wind companies want more
taxpayer help. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

The wind power industry has been growing.
But to keep growing, wind companies want more
taxpayer help. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Some of the recent growth in wind generation is being fueled by a national
production tax credit. It’s due to expire at the end of this year.

The American Wind Energy Association is asking the public to encourage Congress to renew the
credit.

Association spokesman Jeff Anthony says, without the tax break, there’d be a slow down in new
wind projects and a potential loss of jobs.

“The longer it takes, the more in danger we’re putting the jobs in the wind industry at risk from a
drop-off in activity, both in project installations and in new manufacturing installations in this
country. So we need the PTC extended as soon as possible.”

Anthony acknowledges there’s a dispute in Congress over how to pay for the credit. Some
critics call the production tax credit ‘corporate welfare’.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Reactor Back Online at High Cost

One of the biggest nuclear power facilities in the region recently brought another idled reactor back online. The Pickering Nuclear station is just east of Toronto on Lake Ontario and has a total of eight reactors. Some say the cost of operating these reactors isn’t worth the power they generate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

One of the biggest nuclear power facilities in the region recently brought another idled reactor back online. The Pickering Nuclear station is just east of Toronto on Lake Ontario and has a total of eight reactors. Some say the cost of operating these reactors isn’t worth the power they generate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


The Pickering facility is Canada’s oldest nuclear plant: two stations with for reactors each. The newer B station has been operational since it was built in the 1980’s. One reactor at the older A station was restarted last year and a second one, this fall, at a cost of a billion dollars.


Shawn Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace says they’re not worth it.


“We know that the other four reactors at the Pickering B station… they’ll be reaching the end of their operational life around 2009. What we should do is prepare for that, and start building other energy sources to replace the energy that we need as those reactors come offline.”


The Ontario government is looking to develop other sources of energy, but the nuclear industry says the province won’t find it easy to give up nuclear energy. They say it’s clean, emission-free, and despite the problems at the plants, it has still proven to be affordable and reliable.


For the GLRC, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

Related Links

Report Projects Future Water Demands

  • A new report warns of a strain on water resources due to increased usage. (Photo by Annette Gulick)

Water use in six Great Lakes states is likely to go up. That’s according to a new study by researchers at Southern Illinois University. They say, by the year 2025, demand could outstrip supply in some areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

Water use in six Great Lakes states is likely to go up. That’s according to
a news study by researchers at Southern Illinois University. They say, by
the year 2025, demand could outstrip supply in some areas. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:


The report predicts that in twenty years, the region will use roughly seven
percent more water than it does today. That’s not enough to endanger the Great Lakes or most groundwater sources, but it is enough to strain water resources in some parts of the region.


Water use will grow fastest in Illinois and Ohio, mostly because they are
likely to see the most economic growth. Researcher Ben Dziegielewski says there’s a connection
between wealth and water.


“People with higher income tend to use more water, because they tend to have
swimming pools, and sprinklers for flower beds, and maybe even green lawns.”


The report predicts that states with slower economic growth, like Indiana
and Michigan, will use less water in the next two decades. Wisconsin and Minnesota are expected to use about the same amount of water.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

New Drinking Water Rules Proposed

Federal plans to reduce exposure to lead and copper in drinking water could mean more monitoring of public water supplies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Federal plans to reduce exposure to lead and copper in drinking water could mean more
monitoring of water from public water supplies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck
Quirmbach reports:


The U.S. EPA says a lead contamination problem in the District of Columbia will prompt several
changes to federal rules on lead and copper in the nation’s drinking water supply. David Denig-
Chakroff is on a committee of the American Water Works Association that looks at lead
contamination. He says one of the biggest changes might be more monitoring of water when
local suppliers change water sources or the treatment process.


“They really need to go back and make sure that’s not changing the corrosivity of the water and
potentially increasing lead or copper corrosion.”


More corrosion from the pipes can lead to more lead and copper coming out of the tap. Lead can
build up in the brain, kidneys and red blood cells. The greatest risk is to young children and
pregnant women. The EPA says its formal proposals for updating the lead and copper rule will
be ready next year.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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A Rare Visit From a Northern Neighbor

  • The Great Gray Owl is a rare sighting south of the U.S.-Canadian border. (Photo by Matt Victoria, Camillus, NY. www.fickity.net)

The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food, thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec, even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it
happened:

Transcript

The Great Gray Owl usually lives deep in the northern forests of Canada. But due to scarce food,
thousands of the big owls have drifted south. They’ve drifted into southern Ontario and Quebec,
even crossing the border into Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Last month, a Great Gray
was spotted in New York, the first one documented there in almost a decade. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein was there when it happened:


Ornithologist Gerry Smith had invited me to see some of the best raptor habitat in northern New
York. We took off in his cluttered Saturn wagon.


“Here we go!…” (sound of engine turning on)


Gerry wears a beat up canvas hat, green sweatshirt, and always has one hand on his binoculars.
He started birdwatching when he was 13 as a sort of therapy.


“My father passed away when I was 15, but he was terminally ill, and I needed an escape, you
know, obviously as a 13 year-old kid I didn’t know that, but I got hooked, and the rest, as they
say, is history.”


More than 40 years later, he’s never had a job not related to birds. And he’s in his element
cruising the back roads of Upstate New York.


These farm fields are near the St. Lawrence River. They’re ideal for hawks and owls. They’re
grassy with occasional tree stands. And they don’t get as much snow as other parts of the state.
So birds can snag the mice and voles they live on all winter long.


In no time, Gerry’s spotting raptors. There’s a hawk perched in a twisted elm…


“Yep, it’s a Red-tailed Hawk and I think it’s got prey because it’s bending down like it’s eating.”


A rough-legged hawk soars above us, black and white plumage glowing in the sun.


“The bird was just lofting along.”


A Short-eared Owl glides past a farmhouse.


“Look how that is flying. It’s flying like a big fruit bat. Cutting left across the hay bales, coming
toward the house, above the house now, and drifting left.”


Smith’s also seen a snowy owl this year. But still no sign of the Great Gray owl.


The Great Gray usually lives in the far northern forests of Canada. But this year it has flown
south to the upper Great Lakes region by the thousands. Conservation biologist Jim Duncan is a
Great Gray Owl expert with the province of Manitoba. He says the phenomenon happens
cyclically, when the Great Gray’s main food source – the meadow vole – becomes scarce.


“It’s a regular migration. It’s like a robin migrating in response to food availability, except in the
case of the Great Gray Owl, it’s a longer period of time. It’s three to five years.”


Gerry Smith’s still waiting for the Great Gray in New York. It’s been spotted just across the St.
Lawrence River in Canada.


“There’s a single Great Gray Owl on Amherst Island, but not one, as far as we know, has made it
into northern New York despite the fact that a whole lot of us have been looking.”


Now, I know you’re going to call that easy foreshadowing. But believe it or not, just an hour
later, Gerry pulls the car over, grabs his binoculars, and peers at something big perched on a tree.


“We have the first Great Gray Owl that’s made it across the border. I’ll be a son of a gun. That is
so…Now I’m very enthusiastic. Hey, I’m gonna set up my scope.”


While Gerry unpacks the telescope, a raven flies to a branch just above the owl and tries to scare
it away. Birders call it “mobbing.”


“Now don’t you mob that owl, you fiend. I think that’s what he’s thinking of doing. Watch this.”


The owl holds its ground, and Gerry gets it in the telescope’s sights.


“That is so cool. It’s not facing us, it’s back is to us, but take a look, that shape is very
distinctive.”


It’s slate gray with some brown and white, round head, stocky body, as big or bigger than the
raven.


“This has been…oh, the owl just hooted. It’s a very low guttural hoot, something like a horned
owl, only deeper.”


Just then, the owl’s finally had enough. It takes flight and drifts slow and low to a stand of trees,
likely its roost. Gerry jots down the GPS coordinates and we get back in the car.


“Well, sir, we’ll finish the route and head back, but we have had undoubtedly the high point of
the day. That’s the high point of my winter.”


This Great Gray Owl migration is the biggest on record. Biologist Jim Duncan says it’s a chance
for all eager birders to help science.


“People have a real opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the species, be they farmers,
housewives, commuters. They don’t have to be scientists.”


You do have to be respectful, though, if you want to report Great Gray sightings to wildlife
officials. Stay off private land, don’t make noise, and keep your distance. And enjoy a rare
opportunity to see a Great Gray visitor from the North.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Rats Scurrying to the Suburbs

  • Life in the suburbs is idyllic to some people... (Photo by Bon Searle)

Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame
for rats pouring out of the sewers in droves all over the country, and the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most pristine
neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce
Kryszak explains what caused the rat invasion and
what’s being done to evict them:

Transcript

Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame for rats pouring out of the sewers
in droves all over the country. And the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most
pristine neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak explains what
caused the rat invasion and what’s being done to evict them:


Piercing blue autumn skies and billowing white clouds drift across the chimneys of this modest,
but perfectly manicured suburb. There aren’t even many leaves crunching under foot. Town workers
have already come and vacuumed them all away. But there’s a nasty little secret scurrying under
the porches and behind the garden sheds in this Western New York town. County Sanitation Chief
Peter Tripi takes us for a peek.


“Can you see the teeth marks here? That’s actually rat gnaw marks. And there’s the garbage bag.
And that’s what we found when we went to this property.”


Now, you might be thinking that we trudged through derelict grass and scattered debris to find
these rat clues. Nope. This is a gorgeous, manicured yard – with not a blade of grass out of
place. But Tripi says rats aren’t choosy.


“You would never think by looking side to side that there would be a rat problem in this yard.
Doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in, or how much money you’ve got. There’s no difference.
They just like your food.”


And you’d be surprised where rats can find food. A garbage can left even briefly uncovered, a
neglected bird feeder, uhhh… dog feces… and even a compost pile.


“Absolutely. This is a rat condo. It’s a grass-clipping compost pile that basically housed rats
to go a hundred yard radius all the way around to the different houses.”


Tripi says rats had to get creative with their housing. A summer of extremely heavy rains drove
the out of the sewers and into some previously rat-free neighborhoods. And with the West Nile
virus killing off millions of birds, the rats have less competition for the food they’re finding
above ground. The consequence is a virtual rat infestation all the way from New York and Illinois
to Virginia, Michigan and L.A. In Kenmore, there have been four thousand rat complaints – nearly
double last year.


(Sound of garbage truck)


Of course, none of this is news to the garbage collectors. They see the problem up close and
personal. Twenty-year veteran Louie Tadaro says this past summer is the worst he’s ever seen.


“Across the street there’s an alleyway and there had to be like ten of them in there, And we
started chasing them with garbage cans trying to kill them, but we couldn’t. By the time we
got there they just split.”


The problem is, they don’t split for long. Vector Control Chief Tripi says now that the rats
have relocated from the sewers to upscale accommodations, they kind of like it.


“And what that means is that they want to live with us. They want to be near our garbage and
our bird feeders. The problem with that is that rats carry diseases.”


We all know about stuff like typhus and the bubonic plague. But there are emerging diseases,
such as a pet-killer called Leptospiroris. It’s killing dogs all across the country. Tripi
says they need to get rid of the rats before the disease starts spreading to humans. So, his
team is taking the rats on, one yard at a time.


Tripi and his Vector control team set rat traps, they fill bait boxes with poison, and – when
they have to – they issue citations to residents who don’t heed the town’s new “rat control rules.” Covered garbage cans only. Clear away all brush. Clean up scattered bird seed and dog feces. Slowly, the rules seem to be working.


(sound of Tripi looking into rat trap)


Still Tripi says it’s mostly educational warfare. And he says now – heading into winter – is the
best time to nip the problem. If the rats get cozy, not only will they stay, they will multiply.
Fully nourished, one adult rat can breed up to sixty baby rats a year.


“The adult rat can live on a little bit of food, but he can’t procreate unless he has a lot of
food source. And they can’t live through the winter unless they’re warm and fattened up.”


So now is the time to – quite literally – put a lid on it. Keep those garbage cans covered, unless
you want some uninvited furry guests this winter, and many, many more come spring.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Romancing the American Chestnut

  • American chestnuts (left) are smaller than Chinese and European chestnuts. The Chinese and European varieties are also resistant to the blight, making the imports more desirable to growers. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one
traditional food has – for the most part – disappeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one traditional food has – for the most part – disapeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of Nat King Cole singing, “Chestnuts roasing on an open fire…”)


That old chestnut of a song romanticizes roasting chestnuts as a part of the holidays. But a lot of us have never even seen chestnuts, let alone roasted them on an open fire. Chestnuts used to be a major part of the Eastern hardwood forest. There were millions of them. In fact, 25 percent of all the mature trees were chestnuts. But a blight, imported with some Chinese chestnut trees, slowly wiped out the American chestnuts. Now, they’re gone.


Well… almost. Much of the root stock is still alive. Sprouts grow until the blight knocks them back again. A blight only hurts the standing tree where it branches out.


And, in a few isolated pockets in the Midwest, the blight hasn’t reached the trees. A few American chestnuts are alive and growing and some of them are free of the blight. At Nash Nursuries in central Michigan, owner Bill Nash is guiding us through a rare sight… a grove of American chestnuts.


“These are 20 years old and as you can see, they’re fairly good sized. The American chestnut is quite a rapid growing tree. It’s well-suited for our climate, so it doesn’t have any of the problems that some of the hybrids do as far as growing and cultural care you have to take care of them. The Americans, you get them started and they’re pretty much on their own.”


In a few places in Michigan and Wisconsin there are small groves of chestnuts. They’re prized trees. They’re great for shade. The hardwood is rot resistant and makes great furniture and fence posts. And the chestnuts are eaten by humans and wildlife alike. Bill Nash says the tree will be popular again if it ever overcomes the blight that’s hit it so hard.


“The American chestnut will make another big comeback in this country as a yard tree, as a timber tree, as a wildlife tree.”


That part about a wildlife tree is more important than just worrying about the squirrels and bunnies. Chestnuts were an important food source for all kinds of animals.


Andrew Jarosz is a plant biologist at Michigan State University. He says the loss of chestnuts has been hard on wildlife populations.


“Chestnuts shed nuts in a more regular pattern than oaks, which will have what are called mast years – where they’ll have major crops, massive crops one year and very small crops in other years – which means it’s either feast or famine if you’re depending on oaks.”


Since the blight first began hitting American chestnuts about a century ago, researchers have been looking into all kinds of ways to stop it. One way is to cross it with the Chinese chestnut which has a couple of genes that resist the blight. But it takes a long time to breed out the Chinese characteristics from the American chestnuts and still keep the resistant genes.


Another approach is genetic manipulation. Genetically modifying the American chestnut tree to make it disease resistant. Again, work is underway, but it takes a long time. And even after success, it’s likely some people won’t like the idea of releasing a genetically modified organism into the wild.


The final approach worked in Europe when the blight hit there. It seems there’s a naturally occuring virus that kills the blight. It spread naturally in Europe. There are a few groves in Michigan that have naturally acquired the virus and it’s working to keep the blight at bay. Andrew Jarosz is working on the research. He says the trick is figuring out how to get the virus to spread to other trees short of manually spreading it on cankers infected by the blight.


“If we’re literally talking about millions of trees across probably, you know, the eastern third of the country, we obviously can’t treat every canker on every tree. And we need to be able to figure out a way to deploy the virus in a way that it can spread.”


Even with all that hopeful research, it’ll be ten years at least before some practical solutions end up in the forests, and Jarosz believes a couple of centuries before the American chestnut holds the place it once did in the forests.


Bill Nash knows it’ll be a while before there are major changes, but he is optimistic about the American chestnut.


“Oh, I would think the tree has a bright future. There’s enough people working on that, enough programs going on now… So, I would suspect that in the not-too-distant future we should have some of this progress made. You know, Robert Frost in his poem predicted the comeback of the American chestnut, that something would arise to offset that blight. And we’re starting to see that.”


Frost put it this way: “Will the blight end the chestnut? The farmers rather guess not, It keeps smoldering at the roots And sending up new shoots Till another parasite Shall come to end the blight.”


Seems Frost was an optimist too.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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