This is The End

So... I think I can officially say I'm done with the project part of the Gold Award.  I have the hours, I have the presentation time, and my trees are planted!!!  Within the past month especially, a lot has been going on.  I had about 8 hours of time spent talking to groups, final preparations for my trees were carried out, and I got them into the ground.

   It was difficult to actually find a place in the GCBS that was appropriate for them, but I did find a place eventually.

It was a four day process over two weeks:
Day 1-  I found a place for me to plant the trees. (no pictures of that day since it was just walking around)
Day 2-  I dug up any weeds to prep the ground and made two holes: one for my American Chestnut tree and the other for a Chinese Chestnut.
                               

Day 3- I planted the trees!! yay~

Day 4- I built, with the help of both my parents, a stone wall around the area.  And it's done!

  May they survive the upcoming winter months, please.  I hope for the best.  XD

  On another note, I did a lot of presenting... It's safe to say all of that stuff is out of the way now, and I have all the necessary requirements to submit my final report.  

  This won't be my last post since I plan to grow seedlings over the winter, but it may be the last post on my project's progress.  That being said, thank you for joining me on that journey!  All the support is much appreciated! 

- Elena

P.S.- Here a just a few pictures of me presenting. 

More Updates!!!

GUYS!!

   I reached 80 hours on my project! *opens so many confetti poppers*  This is very exciting, because I still have so much left to do!  I'm definitely going over in terms of time.

  I'm still looking for more places to present, in fact.  Yesterday I actually did a presentation to a fourth-grade Junior Troop in my area.

They were very interactive and surprisingly knew a lot about trees!  It was very interesting to me to hear all of their comments and questions.

They were so cute. ^.^
Some of them kept asking if the burs were alive or just "porcupines," and they were really interested in how scientists gave the American Chestnut trees a "flu shot" to help them become blight resistant.  (That comment was on account of the fact that I referred to their method of creating blight resistance as something very similar to getting a shot of some kind.)

In other news, I know my project will be done hopefully before the end of October.  It's a long month, and I need presentation hours (about 5 more),  but I think I can manage. Rest assured, I definitely will be receiving this award this upcoming June.

I'm very, very proud and excited.  Let's see where the upcoming weeks go! 

WooHoo!

   Well, I started my senior year this past week... Which means I'm in my last lap both at high school and for my Gold Award. In fact, I'm almost done! My projected completion date is around Halloween when I'm going to plant my trees.  ^.^ It's going to be an exciting few months between college applications and fun activities.. I'm looking forward to it!

  I have handled a few presentations, and I'm working on organizing more.  In the meantime I've been keeping a close eye on my trees.

Me presenting to a School-Age group at a local daycare

  If you may recall, in July I wrapped one of my saplings because it was not looking very well at all.
  Well I have good news!!

Look how much bigger it has gotten! 

It has new growths on the very top and is starting to bud in a few more places... I'm confident that it should grow to be a bit larger, maybe even taller than I am!
I'm hoping that this will happen with another one of my saplings.  I had mud-packed it earlier today because it is not looking very well at all.  It seems as though it's trying to grow (it has plenty of budding leaves on it), but it does not have the strength or ability to do so.

  Judging by how well this sapling is doing I'm thinking that the one I just wrapped will improve in state. :-)

Get Well Soon!

The Good and The Bad

The Good:

   I checked my saplings and noticed that the one which I had wrapped was showing slight signs of improvement.  On certain areas of the tree, new leaves are appearing and don't seem to be curling like some of the other leaves on the plant.  This makes me hopeful that this damp soil compression method is doing what it is supposed to in helping the sapling!

The Bad: 

   The American Chestnut Research and Restoration page on Facebook (link) uploaded a picture recently about a certain Anti-GM group that is rallying to go destroy genetically engineered (GE) Chestnut, Eucalyptus, and Poplars. :-(  This fear of them "ruining our ecosystem" seems a bit old fashioned to me, and if anything, these trees are saving our environment not hurting it.  Geeze... Not all GMOs are bad.

UH-OH

Uh-oh is right...

I was checking out one of my saplings this morning when my mom pointed out to me that its leaves were curling.

Immediately concerned, I started to look more closely at it until another thing was brought to my attention.


From what I could make out, it seems as though this sapling may have caught the chestnut blight.  On its little trunk (which is no more that half an inch thick) there is a small streak of that oh-so-familiar rust color.  At first I was a bit confused.  I was convinced that only more mature trees could contract the blight, but I never ruled it out as something that could happen to my saplings.

And of course it happened.

   The blight isn't very visible and the wound is still relatively small, but I still wanted to take action to slow the process as much as possible.

I was then sent to this page.

That's when I got the idea to use the Soil Compress Method.
I took two plastic cups, soil, water, and Gorilla tape and went to making my structure.


I cut the bottoms off of the cups, cut slits in side so that they would go onto the sapling, and then I taped them in place.  I then filled the structure with tightly packed soil and moistened it with water.
The whole thing itself is pretty sturdy, and can also function as a support for the tree.

Hopefully this will work to slow the blight from killing the sapling.  I can hope that it will do something, but in the meantime I will keep watch.

   On another note, my seedlings aren't looking too good.  I'm pretty sure most, if not all of them, have sustained too much damage from the sun.  It's pretty upsetting.  However, I'm going to grow more seeds over the winter inside my house.  Hopefully those will survive longer.

Talk to you all again soon!

Recent Activity

   Just to show that I've actually been doing some face-to-face time, I went to the Tanners Pond Environmental Center to give a presentation to NCC students.  On the topic of climate change and invasive species, I gave them my talk which needs some work  and received pretty positive feedback.  Stuff like that really reassures me that what I'm doing actually is interesting to people other than those involved in this project. haha

Now that I've actually done a couple of presentations, this past one with the Learning Box (it has a bunch of AC materials in it such as wood samples, maps, spurs, and nuts), I know that I need a better formulated curriculum ... Especially since my communication skills are a bit meh. Developing lesson plans and things of that variety would be very helpful.  I should be able to do those things with a little guidance and everything should run smoother. :-)

COOL STUFF

   I'm just going to get right to the point and say that a lot has happened and I've been very neglectful of doing these blog posts.

  Recently, my "sticks" have been doing quite well.  Only two have leaves so I have basically resorted to assume that the remaining ones which have not grown leaves are dead. :-(  Yet while I was partly unsuccessful in the "stick" department, my seedlings (all seven of them) have sprouted and have little leaves of their own.  They're doing pretty well, but I need to move them out of the sun more.  Some of their leaves are damaged and browning. 3: Other than that, they are pretty healthy and well-watered.

   On another note, I have done some interactive research that was very successful.  My mother and I ventured up to Syracuse for New York's 22nd ReLeaf Conference, the key topic of which was the American Chestnut tree.

I took plenty of notes, believe me, and I learned quite a bit about how SUNY ESF is producing blight resistant chestnut trees.  Using transgenics, the scientists working on this endeavor (such Dr. William Powell and Dr. Charles Maynard) have been implanting an enzyme called oxalate into the genome of the American Chestnut tree.  Oxalate is not a pesticide, it is a naturally occurring enzyme which we can find in foods we eat such as strawberries.  (Talk about using GMOs for good...)  It also is resistant to the chestnut blight; so by adding more of it to a tree they increase the tree's resistance to the blight.  Fascinating, right?

  After they implant the gene the must put the tree embryos through several stages: establish, multiply, root, and acclimatize.  

1. Establish

The embryos are grown on petri dishes, essentially.

2. Multiply

Only 1 or 2 out of the thousands they produce actually thrive to create more resistant embryos which they can use!  

3. Root

Some of the embryos, kept in a special medium, will develop roots and be planted.

4. Acclimatize

After rooting and being planted, the "seedlings" will be transferred to special areas in which they will be kept until the have developed enough to be placed in the field. 

Here are the surviving acclimatized trees in a greenhouse

After hearing several great talks, I went to go speak to a researcher at the school with whom I had been in contact with.  Unfortunately she was not there when I went to look for her.  Me being me, I was very hesitant to look else where, but my mother insisted that we at least check the greenhouses to see if there would be someone there who would be willing to help us.  Nervous as I was, we did, and we actually met a woman who was very enthusiastic to help us out.  Her name was Jaclyn Boylan, and (what luck!) she is the current caretaker of the planting grounds where the school is keeping their trees.

   She led my mother and me there.  I recall her saying that the whole plot was about 40 acres of land, all in which are 4 arboretums and research facilities, as well as her house and, of course, the chestnut trees!  The plots of land on which they were planted were surrounded by these HUGE 8-feet tall fences, or "deer fences," as she called them.  Within them the trees were planted neatly.  There were tall ones, small ones, babies, and not.

It was amazing to see what my "stick" and seedlings may one day become.  

Saplings with either stick supports or wrappings. 

Not to mention, I learned a bit on how to care for the trees as they grow.  

I now know that my saplings should either get some form of support, either from a "cone" structure or a stick support so that they will grow upright. 

These ones are about the size of my seedlings. :3

I also have learned that the seedlings should be kept out of direct sunlight.

Additional fencing may also be required to keep the smaller critters, such as bunnies or squirrels, from eating them.

Mrs Boylan told us that it wasn't long ago that a deer actually got into one of the areas... Yikes!



This was all extremely fascinating, BUT I think the highlight of the area was this:

That, my friends, is an adult American Chestnut tree.  I'd say it was about 20-30ft tall and look...

     

IT HAD CHESTNUTS!!! 

I got slightly too excited, haha.  I was amazed at the mere sight of it and overwhelmed by the thought that one day I may help to grow something that large and magnificent.

There was a downside to this, though.  As if it weren't obvious enough, the tree had a HUGE canker in its side from the blight. :C 

It ate almost all the way through the tree to the opposite side, and looking up you could see that it was cutting off the nutrients to the branches above.  Many of them were dead and the distinct rusty color of the bight was present on them.

The tree is sad too. (Can you see the ":-(" face?)

     

 Although that was pretty sad, the experience itself was very cool, and I am extremely grateful that I had that opportunity.  

  I hope to use the information I've learned in my presentations, and expand my outreach ... I have, after all, found some possible people to contact! 

  Anyways, I'll keep in touch!