SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2021 | 3B Brian Martin, left, of G&C Farm shows U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Gov. Kate Brown berry crops damaged by drought and high temperatures. PHOTOS BY BRIAN HAYES/STATESMAN JOURNAL ‘A model for the future’ Connor Radnovich Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vil- sack called Oregon’s diverse agricultural landscape “a model for the future of agri- culture” during a visit to the mid-Wil- lamette Valley on Tuesday, which includ- ed a tour of a local family farm and meet- ings with Gov. Kate Brown. “It’s such a more resilient system, and we obviously want to continue to see farmers be able to prosper here in Oregon and across the country,” Vilsack told re- porters while at G&C Farm outside Sa- lem. Despite that diversity-grounded resil- iency – boasting specialty growers and more than 220 commodities – Oregon farmers face significant challenges stemming from climate change. This year alone, the Willamette Valley saw historic weather events in the Valen- tine’s Day ice storm and the two-day “heat dome” in June. Taylor Martin of G&C Farms said they lost 65-70% of their cane berry crop this year in just those two days. He and his father Brian Martin took Brown and Vil- sack on their tour, including showing them blackberry leaves crisped from the heat. “We’ve never had an event like this. The heat dome ... basically baked them on the cane,” Taylor Martin said. 93% of the state is currently in severe or extreme drought conditions, Brown also noted. “We are obviously seeing the com- pounding impacts of climate change on the ground here in Oregon,” Brown said. Vilsack said farmers who were im- pacted by the weather this year might be able to apply for some financial assis- tance in the fall. A payment framework is Vilsack says financial assistance to farmers whose crops were impacted by weather is currently under debate. currently under debate and could be an- nounced publicly in late August or Sep- tember. He added that existing assistance programs intended to provide support to farmers during disasters needed to be looked at for potential improvements. The pair also had a meeting at the Oregon Office of Emergency Manage- ment building to discuss wildfire risks and coordination between the state and federal government on wildfire resilien- cy and suppression efforts. Vilsak also touted President Joe Bi- den’s Build Back Better plan and the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure pack- age currently in the Senate as containing critical investments to support agricul- ture and wildfire resiliency. “We need to do a better job of manag- ing our forests, and that requires re- sources,” he said. “We’ve been attempt- ing to do forest management on the cheap.” Reporter Connor Radnovich covers the Oregon Legislature and state govern- ment. Contact him at cradnov- ich@statesmanjournal.com or 503-399- 6864, or follow him on Twitter at @CDRadnovich. Penn State team fights to bring back ‘survivor’ tree Frank Bodani York Daily Record USA TODAY NETWORK YORK, Pa. – The colossal tree in York County, Pennsylvania, is one of the nation’s great survivors. Its seven trunks erupt in all directions from a well-worn base in an open field. Its limbs are gnarled and its height stunted from disease. Its outer leaves and stems are browned and cracked from cicadas. It is no longer smooth, straight or majes- tic. Its power comes from within: How it has produced what amounts to a protective ar- mor of furrowed bark to ward off what has killed most of its kind. It is a living marvel, as far as trees go. One of the nation’s largest disease-resis- tant American chestnuts continues to grow and even thrive for reasons unknown next to a church parking lot, not far from Inter- state 83. Researchers at Penn State and across the East Coast continue to study it and the few others like it – taking pollen and gene samples to aid their long-standing fight to return one of America’s most-prized hard- woods to the landscape in all its glory. The York County tree is probably around 100 years old. It defies gravity by unduly stretching and twisting its weighty branches, some reaching down to try and touch the earth. It is one of just a few known old-growth American chestnuts in Pennsylvania that have developed a means to fully repel the blight that brought this species to the brink of extinction. While countless chestnuts are still sprouting on forest floors, the disease kills nearly every one before it grows above 10 feet, and begins to reap its true value. These “survivor” trees continue to help restore what some call the most valuable tree in our nation’s history. One of the most useful trees in the world. And though arduous, the chestnut’s re- covery appears to be gaining steam. Foresters, environmentalists and re- searchers such as Sara Fern Fitzsimmons, director of restoration with the American Chestnut Foundation in State College, Pennsylvania, talk about why the cause is so important. The tree’s nuts once were so plentiful they’d pile into a forest carpet six inches thick in the fall. They were integral to feed- ing people, livestock and wildlife such as deer and turkey. Chestnut wood also was prized for its rot-resistance and strength, and was used to make everything from cradles to coffins. Its tannins were vital in the leather-making industry. And the fast grower quickly re-sprouted after cutting and was ready for another har- vest in only 20 years. Chestnuts were the most versatile of the primary hardwoods in the Eastern forest, including oak, cherry and walnut. “Everything revolved around the Amer- ican chestnut,” said Renae Weidner with Pennsylvania’s Department of Conserva- tion and Natural Resources. “And then they were gone.” There once were nearly 4 billion Amer- ican chestnuts growing east of the Missis- sippi River. That began to change dramatically after a fungal blight arrived more than a century ago, accidentally transported along with imported Chinese chestnut trees. The fun- gus took hold swiftly and killed uncondi- tionally, leading to what has been called “the greatest ecological disaster” in our world’s forests. By the time it was fully identified in 1904, the blight was beyond control. Spread by the wind, it was moving an estimated 50 miles per year, tree by tree. After surviving every possible ecological challenge for 40 million years, the Ameri- can chestnut was nearly wiped away in just 40. It is still described as “functionally ex- tinct,” which means that though its root system continues to thrive and it can repro- duce, it rarely lives long enough to grow into a formidable tree. They often resemble shrubs before succumbing to the blight. The effort to create a sustainable, dis- ease-resistant variety of chestnut is just one mission in the ramped-up fight to save American native forests. Other famed growers such elm, ash and more recently hemlock and beech trees have all been deci- mated, in some form or fashion, by foreign pests and disease. The American chestnut recovery has stretched the longest. Its ultimate success could add much-needed diversity to our forests and provide keys to help those other struggling trees recover, Fitzsimmons said. One part of the restoration includes the estimated 500 chestnut research orchards stretching from Maine into the Midwest and along the Appalachian Mountain range. In places such as Codorus State Park in York County, four orchards feature tradi- tional breeding methods of crossing strains of American and Chinese chestnuts in hopes of developing blight resistance. Another restoration tactic involves cre- ating a genetically modified chestnut. Re- searchers have added a wheat gene to the American chestnut to potentially increase resistance. The long-term results of these efforts, though, are still unknown. While mass plantings of these newly created trees are underway, “restoration is a decades- to cen- tury-long process,” Fitzsimmons said.