Allen Nichols of the American Chestnut Foundation will speak at the Catskill Center, this Saturday April 13th, 2019 at 1pm on the restoration of the beloved American Chestnut. The Catskill Center is at 43355 Route 28 Arkville, NY 12406. This event has been organized by John Burroughs Woodchuck Lodge.
According to the foundation: “More than a century ago, nearly 4 billion American chestnut trees were growing in the eastern U.S. They were among the largest, tallest, and fastest-growing trees. The wood was rot-resistant, straight-grained, and suitable for furniture, fencing, and building. The nuts fed billions of birds and animals. It was almost a perfect tree, that is, until a blight fungus killed it more than a century ago. The chestnut blight has been called the greatest ecological disaster to strike the world’s forests in all of history.”
I work for Virginia State Parks and with help from American Chestnut Foundation we just planted hundreds of American Chestnut seedlings at our Sky Meadows State Park.
I have about 12 acres of mature chestnuts that were planted by my father in the 40s and 50s.
He crossed seedlings from a resistant tree with Chinese stock.
They are infected with the Oak Weevil but I manage to get a few unaffected nuts to roast each year.
He crossed the crosses etc so the orchards have a range of tall and bushy trees. Many are beginning to die off.
Is there a market for the lumber? I understand mushroom farmers use the wood as hosts.
will these trees be an advertisement for GMOs?
In a statement Thursday, two board members of the Massachusetts/Rhode Island Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF), including the Chapter President announced they were resigning from TACF as a protest against the organization’s support for genetically engineering (GE) American chestnut trees.
https://sustainablepulse.com/2019/03/28/american-chestnut-foundation-board-members-resign-over-support-for-gmo-chestnut-trees/#.XLtAxhNKhE4
Where can I get the blight resistant American Chestnut?
I was thinking if planting a tree in honor of my dad who passed.
Will it take well in the catskill soil?