Have you seen an American Chestnut?
DrPulte_Moderator
| Posted in Southeast Gardening on
Recently I wrote a story about the current state of the American Chestnut and conservation efforts to save chestnut trees. Anytime you write about the American Chestnut you open yourself up to a variety of opinions. In fact my article was posted on several American Chestnut facebook pages and debated online for quite some time.
I have seen a few American Chestnuts in the wild in East Tennessee. I was wondering who has seen the real deal in the wild?
Replies
If you missed the article:
https://www.finegardening.com/article/the-current-state-of-american-chestnut-tree-conservation
Thanks for pointing that out.
I used to occasionally see small ones, less than 20', in the wild in New York and Connecticut, but haven't seen one in at least 15 years. This could be because I don't have time to hike as much! I assume what I saw were stump sprouts.
I also think I have mostly seen stump sprouts.
I don't know that I have ever seen one. But I just finished a novel titled "North Woods." It covered the lives of all the folks who lived in a forest of chestnut trees in New England over a couple hundred years. The loss of those forests was pretty sad.
I'll look into this!
https://tacf.org/
The American Chestnut foundation webpage for those who are interested.
The effort is ongoing and looking bright! Check out the American Chestnut Foundation. The idea is to cross-breed with varieties based on the Chinese chestnut so that they acquire the blight resistance but acquire few other traits
Yes, many also think that many of our few remaining natives have some Chinese chestnut genes in them. The Chinese chestnut has been in the country so long.
Thank you for this!