Arkansas Agriculture Edition 25 : Page 14
Bringing back a legend The quest to restore the Ozark Chinquapin by Johnny Sain “Ozark Chinquapin nuts were delicious, and we waited for them to fall like you would wait on a crop of corn to ripen. They were that important. Up on the hilltop the nuts were so plentiful that we scooped them up with flat-blade shovels and loaded them into the wagons to use as livestock feed, to eat for ourselves and to sell. Deer, bears, turkeys, squirrels and a variety of other wildlife fattened up on the sweet crop of nuts that fell every year. But starting in the 1950s and ‘60s, all of the trees started dying off. Now, they’re all gone, and no one has heard of them.” This is a quote from a 91-year-old Ozark Mountains resident describing the role the Ozark chinquapin (pronounced CHINK-a-pin) played in the life of rural people. The chinquapin was more than part of the landscape; it was a vital part of the ecosystem and the life of early Arkansas settlers I’d never heard of an Ozark chinquapin until just a few years ago. I doubt many of you reading this have either. The odds are if you were born after 1950, you never knew the tree existed. It’s kind of a sad story. The Ozark chinquapin ( Castanea ozarkensis ) is a variety of chestnut tree in the Beech Family not to be confused with the chinkapin oak ( Quercus muehlenbergii) found in these same mountains. It was the preferred food source for wildlife in the Ozark and Ouachita mountains, as well as the Arkansas River Valley of western Arkansas. It was also common in the Missouri Ozarks and found in a few other surrounding states. Like most chestnuts, the nutritious mast dropped from the tree in a spine-covered casing. All of the forest herbivores and omnivores would 14 Arkansas Agriculture
Bringing Back A Legend
Johnny Sain
The quest to restore the Ozark Chinquapin<br /> <br /> “Ozark Chinquapin nuts were delicious, and we waited for them to fall like you would wait on a crop of corn to ripen. They were that important. Up on the hilltop the nuts were so plentiful that we scooped them up with flat-blade shovels and loaded them into the wagons to use as livestock feed, to eat for ourselves and to sell. Deer, bears, turkeys, squirrels and a variety of other wildlife fattened up on the sweet crop of nuts that fell every year. But starting in the 1950s and ‘60s, all of the trees started dying off. Now, they’re all gone, and no one has heard of them.”<br /> <br /> This is a quote from a 91-year-old Ozark Mountains resident describing the role the Ozark chinquapin (pronounced CHINK-a-pin) played in the life of rural people. The chinquapin was more than part of the landscape; it was a vital part of the ecosystem and the life of early Arkansas settlers I’d never heard of an Ozark chinquapin until just a few years ago.I doubt many of you reading this have either. The odds are if you were born after 1950, you never knew the tree existed. It’s kind of a sad story.<br /> <br /> The Ozark chinquapin (Castanea ozarkensis) is a variety of chestnut Tree in the Beech Family not to be confused with the chinkapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii) found in these same mountains. It was the preferred food source for wildlife in the Ozark and Ouachita mountains, as well as the Arkansas River Valley of western Arkansas. It was also common in the Missouri Ozarks and found in a few other surrounding states. Like most chestnuts, the nutritious mast dropped from the tree in a spinecovered casing. All of the forest herbivores and omnivores would Ignore white oak acorns to get to them.As a deer hunter, having watched whitetails munch on acorns like I do on peanut M&Ms, this astounds me.<br /> <br /> The trees were drought tolerant and readily grew on the rocky, acidic soils found in the mountains of Arkansas.They were towering trees, sometimes more than 60 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. The chinquapin bloomed in late May and early June, after the spring frosts, and provided a mast crop without fail every autumn.<br /> <br /> Losing the chinquapin changed the complexion of our forests, and It changed them forever. Forestry experts say that the loss of this vital food source lowered the population densities of many animals native to the mountain ranges and river valley.However, the local animals weren’t the only ones that suffered when the chinquapin began to die.<br /> <br /> Early settlers in this region, the Ozark Highlands in particular, used the mast for livestock feed and for food themselves. The nuts taste sweet, not bitter like tannin-filled acorns. To say that chinquapins were important to a homesteader back in the 1800s Is probably an understatement. The closest thing to catastrophic tree species loss we’ve almost experienced was the oak borer infestation back in the 1990s. Luckily, our forests and wildlife averted disaster, and the oak trees recovered. That wasn’t the case for the chinquapins.<br /> <br /> The chestnut blight was the downfall of the chinquapin. The result of a fungus brought into our country on imported Asian trees around the early 1900s, the blight almost wiped them out. The infected trees were logged – along with some healthy ones – and today, any wild chinquapins are growing out of those stumps. The wild saplings don’t make it; most succumb to the blight in about five years. But there is hope.<br /> <br /> Organizations such as the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation (OCF) supply landowners with chinquapin seedlings to plant on their property. The OCF is also working with foresters to produce a blight-resistant chinquapin and one day restore this towering food source to its native Arkansas habitat.<br /> <br /> Landowner Kevin Baker of Pottsville.<br /> <br /> Recently joined the OCF.<br /> <br /> “I joined because from what I’ve read about the tree, it sounds like the perfect food source for wildlife. It grows well in rocky, upland soil which is what makes up most of the 40 acres I own and hunt on in Pope County.”<br /> <br /> Baker says he manages his property for more and healthier wildlife.“The chinquapin is fast growing and produces mast in just a couple of years.If the foundation succeeds with their goal of producing a blight-resistant strain of the chinquapin, it will do wonders for our native wildlife.”<br /> <br /> If interested in finding out more about the campaign to save the Ozark chinquapin or for information about planting chinquapins on your land, contact the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation at ozarkchinquapin.com.
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