National Champion American Elm Buckley, Michigan height: 112 feet — girth: 13.5 feet crown spread: 115 feet

BUCKLEY, Michigan—George Svec may have the answer on his farm to a devastating disease. The nation's largest known American elm tree stands on Svec's farm, giving shade between two cornfields. It has apparently escaped the ravages of Dutch elm disease and may hold clues to saving other trees from the fatal illness.

Svec's elm is getting a lot of attention now, but it stood in relative obscurity for centuries, allowing its thick trunk and several strong branches to grow up to 112 feet in height and support a crown 115 feet across. In fact, the tree is believed to be 300 to 400 years old, meaning it may have taken root before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

David Milarch February 1, 1997

People have commented on the tree's size every now and then, Svec said, but he never suspected it of being a record-breaker.

"It was a nice tree, but I never thought about it, he said.

Evelyn Sika thought about it, though. Sika, a Copemish resident and tree enthusiast, knew about the tree because she and her husband buy grain from Svec. She had been asking David Milarch to take a look at the tree and see if it's a record. Milarch, also of Copemish, owns a nursery and is founder of the Michigan Champion Tree Project. The project, based in Traverse City, helps identify the largest trees in Michigan of different species.

For weeks, she persisted while Milarch resisted.

National Champion American Elm Buckley, Michigan December 1997

"I finally caved in and went to look at it," Milarch said. "I thought the chances of a state—let alone a national—champion was practically nil. But when I saw it, I almost fainted," he said. "I thought it can't be, but it is. Especially such an endangered tree. This is big news because it's an American elm, and it's one hell of a big tree."

Elm trees were the country's favorite shade tree up to 50 years ago because they were easy to grow and it spread its limbs out in a canopy. But in the 1950s and '60s, Dutch elm disease basically denuded thousands of streets east of the Mississippi River of their cathedral ceiling-like coverage.

After Milarch saw the tree, he contacted Elwood Ehrle, the Big Tree coordinator for Michigan and a biology professor at Western Michigan University. Ehrle used a scoring system based on its height, the girth of its trunk and the width of its crown. The tree scored 423 points.

There are no other contenders for the prize, and the 1998 champions will be decided within a month, said Deborah Gangloff, executive director of American Forests.

The former champion American Elm was in Louisville, Kansas, and had a score of 435 points. That tree, however, was cut down in points by lightning, and was destroyed by a vandal in March who threw a fire bomb into it, Gangloff said. Such vandalism is rare, but has happened to at least one other champion tree, she said.

National Champion American Elm © 1998 by Evelyn Sika

The tree has also attracted the attention of Douglas Chapman, a horticulturist and director of Dow Gardens in Midland. Chapman has already taken cuttings of the tree and has gotten some of them to take root. He also passed some of them on to a researcher who will introduce the cuttings to Dutch elm disease to see if it really is resistant to the strain. Chapman said the tree must have some resistance, because he believes it has to have been exposed to the disease at least once.

Evelyn's Elm "One morning last year, Evelyn Sika, postmistress for Copemish, Michigan, was waiting with me for the Smithsonian photographer to take shots of the new National Champion American Elm. A thunderstorm had passed over just before dawn. As the sun rose in the east and cracked the horizon, with the dark purple storm clouds above, it lit up that big Elm like a billion golden lights. Evelyn had her camera, and she captured that moment. It was such an impressive picture, she not only had it blown up, she had it made into postcards. They are being sold at different gift shops and stores, and by environmental and tree groups." —David Milarch 1999 available as a postcard from Evelyn Sika, Postmistress Copemish, MI 49624

Yet, even if the tree is capable of being some sort of Adam of the elms and repopulating the landscape with its progeny, Chapman hopes it's not to the same levels as before. One of the reasons the elm was so devastated before was that people planted too many of them, he said. That allowed the killing fungus to be easily spread from tree to tree by the beetles that carried it.

For that reason, no one species should ever constitute more than 15 percent of the population on the streets, he said. Elm trees comprised up to 70 percent in their heyday.

Dutch elm disease is not the only thing Svec's tree survived. It also survived the clearing of the land for farms. Svec said it probably wasn't cut down because the land was cleared long before chainsaws were around, and its multiple trunks would have been too much for crosscut saws powered by human muscle.

"It wasn't in anybody's way, so why fight it?" he said. Svec is fond of the tree, but he doesn't say much about the honor and the attention. He takes it all in stride as he goes about his business of farming.

"I'm not really into all this stuff," he said. "But as long as I'm around, they won't cut it down."

see also:
1997 Progress Report

  
TERRA: The Earth Restoration and Reforestation Alliance — www.championtrees.org — updated 8/14/2003