>>It's been a long time since I was able to stand next to a butternut tree, and I just marvel at this one.

I know conservation is one of the primary goals of what I call Blandy Farm.

>>Yeah.

>>And so many people don't know we have a state arboretum.

So how many acres is the Orland E. White Arboretum?

>>So the whole property of Blandy Experimental Farm is 700 acres which is really one square mile.

>>Okay.

>>And the arboretum in the middle occupies the central 180 acres.

And we are right in the edge of that arboretum acreage right now.

So we have massive plantings of ginkgos and pawpaws and then these little known plants like the butternut here that is of conservation importance.

But most people really don't know anything about it.

>>Yeah.

>>And so this gives us a chance to talk about some of the roles that the arboretum has here in plant conservation.

>>Here is this very important tree, this rare tree almost.

And it's right by the entrance.

I can hear 17.

>>Yeah.

>>So it's a stark difference between the highway and then coming here to this beautiful open meadow that we're at.

>>Yeah, it is kind of like coming from behind the curtain backstage where everything's going on and suddenly the world changes.

Once you step in here, that sound quickly goes away.

And the arboretum opens up here and you get to immerse yourself.

And we have 5,500 trees and shrubs.

>>Fantastic.

>>That are out here, and over 500 species that are distributed all across the arboretum.

So lots to explore.

>>I call arboretums living libraries for trees.

>>Yeah, it's absolutely true.

And we like to try to figure out how you can open those books and figure out what's in each of those trees.

>>Yes.

But this tree here, you're actually in a conservation program focused on this tree.

>>Yeah, so there are a lot of trees that are declining, and there's a movement through the country to go ahead and look and recognize what trees might be declining, and then try to get as much represented in living collections as possible.

So everyone might know about seed collections and frozen somewhere in Norway.

>>Yes.

>>Or other places, or in Colorado, but this is really having a living collection.

And to know what botanical gardens, what arboreta are growing trees that came from where.

>>Yes.

>>And so we are trying to build up a collection now with butternuts to represent Virginia.

So we really want to go around Virginia, collect seeds from known locations of butternut, plant them here and try to keep them going.

We are kind of at the southern, near the southern and eastern range of the butternut.

And so the butternuts in this region are really experiencing some of the warmer temperatures that they do throughout its range.

And so the ones here are probably more adapted to those higher temperatures than they are say in New York.

>>Yes.

>>And other places further north.

So it becomes more important to make sure those genes are staying in kind of a living gene pool rather than just say, okay, well there are a whole bunch of 'em in New York.

Let's just let New York send seeds all over the place.

>>Right.

>>You need to keep those living collections all around.

>>Interesting.

And this tree, from our perspective here, looks good but it really is failing.

The canopy is thinning, it's starting to get a lot of insects coming in.

And one of them unfortunately is the spotted lantern fly.

>>This particular tree is definitely having a lot of problems.

In the arboretum, there are only a few trees that the spotted lantern flies really seem to be going after.

So number one of course, the tree of heaven.

>>Yes.

>>Nobody cares if the lantern flies were to wipe wipe 'em all out.

>>Enjoy.

>>Unfortunately, they're not doing that.

>>Yes.

(chuckling) >>But the other ones they really go for, they go for black walnut.

And then I discovered last year they were really picking on butternut.

And when you look into this tree now, you not only see the dead branches, but actually a lot of little witches broom in some of the branches.

Whether that's from spotted lantern fly damage or that combined with the drought.

>>Yeah.

>>We are in drought here.

>>It's a one-two punch.

>>Yeah, it's at least a one-two punch.

And I mean, the main thing that seems to be influencing the distribution of butternut and causing it to retract is actually an introduced fungus that was called butternut canker.

>>Ah.

>>And that is what seems to be hitting it over much of the range.

>>Yeah.

>>And that seems to be a real problem for it.

>>And its fellow family member black walnut is also dealing with a thousand canker disease.

So these trees, our native trees are dealing with, again, not just invasive plants but invasive diseases and pathogens coming in.

>>Yeah.

>>As well as pests.

>>Yeah, and very, very hard to control for that.

I mean, we can't go around the forest inoculating trees.

>>No.

(chuckling) >>You really just have to hope that you get enough resistance in the population that there is something to draw on for the future for these plants.

>>Yeah.

Community programs are so important for any arboretum or botanic gardens.

So tell me about what is offered here at the arboretum.

>>So we have one area here that we call the community forest.

And we have planted about 400 trees.

>>Oh wow.

>>In there.

We've had school groups from all the regional schools come in and plant these trees.

And so they're out there with their trowels.

>>Oh wonderful.

>>And their hands getting all dirty and putting the trees in the ground.

>>Yes.

>>And there's another area too that I'd like to like to show you to see some of the ongoing research that we have right now.

>>Okay.

>>In a totally different context.

>>Sounds great.

>>Let's go take a look.

>>You know, T'ai, you said you were bringing me to another community forest project but this is a forest of tubes.

What's going on?

>>I know, I could've taken you anywhere in the arboretum, any of the beautiful places, and I pretty much took you to the leaky basement.

>>Yes.

(chuckling) >>And to look and appreciate what we have here, you have to think both what it's been, what it's come from.

>>Right.

>>And where we're hoping to get it.

So what it was, was a completely entangled invasive shrubs like you see across the street.

>>Oh, that's a mess over there.

>>Yeah, completely dark underneath.

No plants coming through.

There's not gonna become a forest over there anytime soon.

>>No way.

Absolutely no way.

>>And then what we're trying to get here is a forest.

And how do we get a native forest out of that invasive shrub patch?

>>Right.

>>And so what we did was we brought in a forestry mulcher to go ahead and wipe everything out.

And the only native trees in this whole six acre area were those sparse trees that you still see standing.

And so what we did was we got a whole bunch of tree seedlings and then we came out here, we had a whole bunch of volunteers.

So over four days of planting with about 80 different volunteers.

>>Fantastic.

>>Came out here and then helped us plant here.

>>So what's the purpose of the white tubes?

>>So the white tubes are to protect from deer.

>>Ah.

>>So.

>>Okay.

>>We have a very robust community of deer out out here that will feast on any of the trees that we planted.

So we've planted oaks and pawpaw, we've got walnuts out here, we've got maples and dogwoods.

And we even have our white walnuts around here.

>>Yes, our butternuts.

>>Our butternuts are out here.

But this is not just a single planting as like we know what we're doing.

This is really, this is an experimental planting to figure out how to do this.

And so we have plots in which we've taken off the mulch and put grasses in hoping the grass can suppress.

We have plots in which we have the tubes, we have plots without tubes where we put electric fence to try to keep the deer out.

>>Okay.

>>So we've got a long ways to go.

But if you look closely, you'll see some of the trees are coming through the tree tubes already.

>>Yeah, already.

>>And hopefully everything is good for them to continue going and get above deer height.

And then maybe in 10 years it starts to look forest ish.

>>Yes.

>>Out here.

>>Yes.

>>20 years, hopefully it really looks like a forest.

>>Excellent.

>>But we are just trying to figure out how to do this for ourselves and for other people to learn how to take care of invasives.

>>I applaud the support that UVA has given to this project and I thank you and the others for taking on such a huge endeavor.

Having such horrible invasively covered spaces, this is so challenging and we need to find a tool, a method to be able to control them.

I wish this nothing but the best success.

Thank you for taking it on.

>>You're welcome.

And thank you for coming out and sharing the story of what we're trying to do here.