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POLLINATION WORK ON THE KLAUS TREE AT PINE
MOUNTAIN GA
Story by Ronnie Camp
Along with the interest and
publicity that accompanied the discovery of this large and
Southernmost American chestnut tree, many of us felt a degree of
urgency to see it pollinated with a Meadowview pollen. Hopefully this
would begin a line of Lower Southern Piedmont-adapted
blight-resistant and Phytopthora c. resistant offspring that might
someday play a major role in restoring the species throughout Georgia
Dave Keehn did quite a lot of
advance work to plan and coordinate this effort. The bagging against
stray pollen was to be done on June 11th or 12th. In the
week prior, he had arranged for a team of helpers from the GA
Botanical Society, The Pine Mountain Trail Club and GATACF members to
carry in a large quantity of scaffolding with plans to set it up and
be ready for the bagging. To appreciate the magnitude of the work the
team did, one must see the trail leading to the tree. It is heavily
forested, about a mile long and descends over 250 feet; in places it
is covered in large rocks or loose gravel, and is only one or two
feet wide. Steep slopes abound, so surefootedness is required. Each
piece of scaffolding was heavy and had to be carried at the proper
angle to thread it through the trees along the trail. All in all, it
was a tiring and tedious job.
Only after the scaffolding was at
the tree was it learned that Georgia DNR and other safety regulations
strongly suggested it not be assembled and used. A search for
alternative means of reaching the flowers followed. No mechanized
equipment was permissible and the rough and forested rocky terrain
alone made its passage impossible anyway. Fortunately, Jody Rice of
the DNR volunteered to use his canopy climbing skills to do the work.
On the morning of June 11th
, a team of four met on the ridge above the tree: Jody Rice,
John Lull, and Bob Johnson and Ronnie Camp. All shouldered packs of
ropes and climbing equipment and began the hike to the tree. Once
there, lines were thrown across high limbs of nearby oaks on opposite
sides of the Klaus tree and were used to pull up the larger canopy
ropes. The ends of the two ropes met beside the tree and were linked
together with pulleys to form something like a loose clothesline to
which Jody attached his harness. Then, with the team helping, Jody
pulled the ropes tight and lifted himself off the ground and into the
tree limbs. The difficulty of the effort though was more than
expected for several reasons: the Klaus tree turned out to be taller
than estimated and Jody could not reach the flowers which were all in
the top third until several different rope placements had been tried;
the temperature was in the 90’s and Jody could not stay up in the
tree as long as he would have wished without rest. After working
until dark, we had bagged a total of only 5 clusters with 7 burs. We
took down the ropes as required by Park rules and made plans to
return the next day.
After meeting for breakfast, we
decided that we really needed more help if we were to safely bag a
worthwhile number of flowers. We needed a second climber for safety,
to allow rest periods, and to provide expert ground support. Jody
contacted Bill Maher who graciously promised to assist on June 19th.
This meant that, except for controls and the five clusters already
bagged, we would not be able to guard against stray pollination.
However, the risk of stray pollen wasn’t great since no other
chestnuts nearby were flowering. We decided to regroup, wait a week
and organize our resources and do the pollination and bagging on June
19th when it was estimated the flowers would be ready.
On June 19th we not
only had the original team, Bill Maher and Dave Keehn but also Nathan
Klaus and three more DNR rangers arrived to help. The temperatures
had been unusually hot and about half the male catkins were shed and
lying on the ground causing us to worry that the flowers might no
longer be receptive to pollination. We proceeded anyway and found
that Bill and Jody made an excellent climbing team. During the day,
they pollinated and bagged about two dozen flower clusters. With a
bit of luck, these may produce some seeds this fall for beginning the
new line of chestnuts adapted to the Lower Southern Piedmont. Even if
this year’s effort does not produce seed, the number of nearby large
chestnut trees in excellent condition almost assures us that we will
soon succeed. In the meantime we will be studying how to more easily
reach the tops of these trees to accomplish the work.
Our thanks to Jody Rice, Bill Maher, John Lull, Bob
Johnson, Dave Keehn, and all the DNR rangers who helped. We look
forward to our October harvest.
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