Doug Lee and the citizen butternut recovery program

Jeff Green | Sep 20, 2019

Taking a page out of the Butternut recovery program that is based in Kemptville, Doug Lee has been gathering Butternut seeds from trees that healthy trees that appear to be resistant to the Butternut canker that has destroyed most of the Butternuts Tees in Ontario over the last decade.

He has invested in DNA testing to ensure the trees are true Butternuts and not crossed with walnut or another similar species and has been growing seedlings as well. He then plants many of them himself, both directly from seed and with seedlings and offers nuts and seedlings to landowners who are interested in participating in the Butternut recovery.

Butternut trees have a long history. Their nuts were a food source for indigenous peoples in region, and were popular with early settlers as well, and the wood is highly prized for its colour and texture in furniture. The trees are often found in hedgerows at the edges of fields as they like a lot of light and do not grow in heavily forested areas. For that reason they are not usually found in large numbers in one area but are spread throughout the region.

Lee, who lived in the Godfrey are for much of his life before moving to Lennox and Addington and now Maberly, said that he has found a  number of healthy trees that are producing well on the border lands between the granite of the Canadian Shield and the limestone to the east in the vicinity of Brooke Valley.

“Butternuts seem to thrive where there is marble present” Lee said, and since marble is formed when Limestone is heated and squeezed, the Maberly-Elphin Brooke Valley region has a fair number of Butternuts that have survived the canker infestation

There are few, if any, Butternuts that are canker free, but some are resistant, and helping the genetics of those trees by gathering seed and planting new trees further away than they would normally get though other means without going too far away into different soil and climate conditions is one of the keys to the Butternut recovery strategy.

Doug Lee has seed and seedlings available for those who are interested in cultivating Butternuts on their property. He can be reached by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

He has information about planting and optimal soil conditions as well.

To contact the Butternut Recovery program, email Rose Fleguel at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.