Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The business meeting was conducted by Chair, Michael Gold.

1. Anderson, NE-140 Administrative Advisor, praised the group for their continued progress, and for successfully revising the project and having it approved.

2. Hillman nominated Carlson as Chair-elect. Anagnostakis seconded the motion. This is to fill the position vacated when Rhoades, formerly of the Univ. of KY left for another position. Kazmierczak nominated Churchill as secretary. Anagnostakis seconded the motion. Both nominations were approved unanimously.

3. Carlson will host the 2004 meeting in PA, either at State College or at the Mount Alto station at a date of his choosing in September 2004.

1. To improve chestnut trees for timber and for nut production, and determine the cultural requirements of chestnut seedlings in nurseries and natural settings.
a) Fulbright has been doing studies on improving pollination in chestnut orchards. Bad weather and lack of pollinizers may be the major problems in MI, but cross-compatibility is also being investigated. He is also working with a newly purchased peeling machine which removes shells and pellicles. It appears that successful peeling depends on cultivar, growing environment, maturity of nut, moisture and temperature after harvest, and temperature of nuts entering peeler.
b) Hebard reported that B2F2 trees from open pollination were inoculated with C. parasitica, and several had good levels of resistance, supporting the hypothesis that some trees would have two copies of the 2 to 3 genes for resistance.
c) Sisco recommended a joint effort to apply for a large grant for furthering the genetic work with chestnut. He also reported on the TACF efforts in the Eastern U.S., with most work being done in PA, VA, and MA. He hopes to extend European work with 12 linkage groups in European chestnut and European oak to American chestnut.
d) Schlarbaum has about 2,500 nuts from 17 open-pollinated Ozark chinquapins in the Ouachita National Forest in AR and OK. The seed are being grown under contract by a Georgia nursery. He has found high mortality in American chestnut plantings in KY due to Phytophthora root rot (Ink Disease).
e) Anagnostakis had new information on BC3 Japanese-American and BC2 Chinese-American trees planted on three sites in CT. The Japanese-American trees have grown the most over three years, and responded the most to site differences (which included soil pH from 3.9 to 5.5, and different soil calcium levels and soil nitrogen levels). The BC3 trees were all male fertile and the BC2 trees were all male sterile. Greenhouse and growth chamber studies with calcium levels in hydroponically grown American chestnuts showed high calcium inhibited tree growth and was present in leaf tissue. The high calcium level in the plants did not protect them from infection by C. parasitica after inoculation.
f) Craddock has been working with the Chattanooga chestnut project to increase awareness of their breeding program, locate surviving American chestnut trees, and solicit support. A root rot, possibly caused by Phytophthora, has been a problem in many areas in TN. Hypovirulent inoculum is being used to protect trees infected with C. parasitica. Craddock's cultivar trial is being planted with an aim of replicating that made by MO.
g) Alexander reported on screening B2F2 hybrids, Castanea sativa, C. dentata, C. pumila, and C. mollissima for resistance to C. parasitica, using virulent and hypovirulent strains. He found C. sativa, dentata, and pumila equally susceptible, C. mollissima highly resistant, and the B2F2 hybrids varying greatly in resistance.
h) Hunt has established a replicated chestnut cultivar trial with at least 5 trees each of 12 cultivars in each location to determine which do best under MO growth conditions. A nut production orchard with three cultivars, 48 trees each, was planted in 2001 and two pruning systems are planned for evaluation. There are now 56 cultivars in the MO chestnut repository, being maintained and evaluated.
i) Warmund is studying the effects of second-flush flowering on the energy balance of the trees and on nut production.
j) Gold is working to establish a viable chestnut industry by considering market development and value added products, and working with Hunt and Warmund on tree improvement and cultivar selection.

2. To better understand the interactions and ecology of the host/pathogen/parasite systems at the molecular, organismal, and environmental levels in order to develop effective biological controls for chestnut blight disease.
a) Hillman described his recent work with Reoviruses C-18 and 9-B-2-1 which were found in C. parasitica isolates from West Virginia. Segment-specific cDNA libraries were made, and studies of function have been begun.
b) Double presented an update on the control of chestnut blight disease in the population of American chestnuts in West Salem, WI. This is a cooperative effort with several participating NE-1015 members. Two hypoviruses still persist and are spreading.
c) Bell reported on experiments to determine whether canker treatment procedures can be improved.
d) Kazmierczak is continuing to look at intracellular processing and secretion of hydrophobin and cryparin by C. parasitica. She concludes that Kex2 processing is not necessary for secretion of cryparin, the gene does not affect the ability of the fungus to break through the bark, and cryparin/GFP fusion products appear in discrete vesicles in the hyphae.
e) Dawe described sequencing of C. parasitica using ESTs. The library produced and microarrays now available (4200 genes, 2200 clones) will allow more detailed studies of gene function.
f) Nuss is using transfected hypovirulent strains on a population of American chestnut trees to test efficacy.
g) Anagnostakis reported on the joint project with Nuss on transgenic hypovirulent strain release in CT. Six years after the first treatments, sprouts in the treated plot appear to be surviving longer than sprouts in the control plot.
h) Carlson has been conducting silviculture studies for reforestation of American chestnuts, including direct-seeding studies in PA. Chestnut tree crosses are in progress for linkage mapping.

2003
Segers, G. C. and D. L. Nuss. 2003. Constitutively activated G alpha negatively regulates virulence, reproduction, and hydrophobin gene experession in the chestnut blight fungus Cryphonectria parasitica. Fungal Genetics and Biology 38:198-208
Parsley, T. B., G. C. Segers, D. L. Nuss, and A. L. Dawe. 2003. Analysis of altered G-protein subunit accumulation in Cryphonectria parasitica reveals a third G alpha homologue. Current Genetics 43:24-33
Dawe, A. L., V. C. McMains, M. Panglao, S. Kasahara, B. Chen, and D. L. Nuss. 2003. An ordered collection of expressed sequences from Cryphonectria parasitica and evidence of genomic microsynteny with Neurospora crassa and Magnaporthe grisea. Microbiology 149:2373-2384
Craddock, J. H. 2002. Il Castagno negli Stati Uniti. p. 278-283 IN: Buonous, G. (ed.) Il castagno in Italia e nel Mondo: Colturo del passato per il futuro. Edagricole-Calderini, Bologna
Bassi, G. and Craddock, J. H. 1999. Performance and description of the introduced chestnut cultivar 'Colossal' in Cuneo province, northwest Italy. In: Salesses, G. (ed.) Proc. 2nd. International Chestnut Symposium, Bordeau, France. Acta Horticulturae 494:207-212
Craddock, J. H. and Bassi, G. 1999. Effect of clonally propagated interspecific hybrid chestnut rootstocks on short-term graft incompatibility with four cultivars of Italian "Marrone." In: Salesses, G. (ed.) Proc. 2nd. International Chestnut Symposium, Bordeaux, France. Acta Horticulturae 494:207-212
Craddock, J. H. and Bassi, G. 1999. Introduction into Italy of eight Castanea mollissima cultivars from China. In: Salesses, G. (ed.) Proc 2nd. International Chestrnut Symposium, Bordeaux, France. Acta Horticulturae 494:319-321