Indiana News
Indiana Chapter Annual Meeting
This year the Indiana Chapter of TACF will hold an in-person annual meeting. The date is January 14, 2023. The location is the Fitness Farm of Indianapolis. Our chapter science officer, Jim McKenna, has generously arranged for us to use a room at Fitness Farm at no...
Pure American chestnut harvest at Duke orchard
Duke orchard is a germplasm conservation orchard started with a generous contribution from Duke Energy Company. Many of the trees have produced nuts for a number of years. Some years pollen is applied in spring to produce controlled crosses. This year the trees were...
New germplasm conservation orchard (GCO) in Clinton county
This orchard was established three years ago to preserve the genetic material of the Indiana American chestnuts at the Duke orchard at Purdue. The Duke trees were all cloned from old existing chestnuts from all over Indiana. Unfortunately, the Duke chestnuts have all...
TACF Indiana Chapter President honored with Volunteer Service Award
The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) Indiana Chapter President Glenn Kotnik, M.D. was honored with the American Chestnut Foundation’s Volunteer Service Award at the 2022 American Chestnut Symposium in Asheville, NC on Friday, Sept. 30. TCAF said: “Glenn has been...
Backcross American chestnut seedling planting
On May 31 Carroll Ritter and Glenn Kotnik planted backcross American chestnut seedlings in clearings in a mature forest in southeastern Indiana. The forest is about 80 acres in size and has been preserved from cutting and handed down through many generations of a...
Tree evaluation and sample collection at Jackson-Washington State Forest
On May 22, a group of volunteers assembles at Jackson-Washington State Forest. Sara Fitzsimmons, the chapter’s regional science coordinator and Steven Hoy, who manages the chestnut orchard at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania attended. Sara is also...
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National Facebook
Unlike most forest trees that rely mostly on wind, American chestnuts recruit insects too.
#americanchestnut #environmentaleducation #pollinator #nativetrees #dronefootage
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Okay, who was in our Monocacy Orchard. MDTACF.
Did you know some plants actually benefit from fire? Recently burned areas often provide the sunlight and reduced competition that species like blueberries and American chestnuts need to flourish.
#americanchestnut #nativeplants #ForestEcology #conservation #NatureEducation
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Yes! Across the Eastern US, almost all of our most important keystone , overstory trees are fire adapted (pyrophytic 🔥). (Except in bottomlands/riparian/wetland zones, for the most part). This includes Hickories, the upland Oaks, certain pines, especially Longleaf, and Chestnuts. Many Oaks in particular are struggling with recruitment now due to fire suppression, among many other issues. This process is called mesophycation btw. Mesophytic natives like Maples 're-engineer' forests through their dense, moist leaf litter to retard-fires. Invasives make it worse. This is important because Oaks are THE top keystone plants here, hosting more species of Lepidoptera (Moths and Butterflies) than any other plant genus in the US: 500-900 species. Most of these caterpillars will become inconspicuous "little brown moths" , but they form an important massive bottom-tier of the food pyramid. After all, even though birds can source berries from a variety of plants , it takes 6-9000 caterpillars to raise a single clutch of songbirds.
I really appreciate what you are doing.
Thank you!
PICA, the Printing Industry of the Carolinas Awards, is celebrating its 60th year as the ultimate showcase of excellence in printing, and TACF has something to celebrate too.
Our partner in printing (BP Solutions Group) has entered Chestnut magazine in this competition for nearly 10 years and of those, TACF, BP, and designer Lisa Alford have received an award nearly every year, some of which included multiple awards within the same year!
Chestnut once again received a PICA Award for the 2025 competition, winning “Best of Category” for its “Sheetfed Magazine Series.” TACF is thrilled to have received this honor and to celebrate it with you!
Want to see what this award-winning magazine is all about? Become a member!
#americanchestnut #magazine #science #forestecology #explore
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Big congratulations to you Jules! 🎉🎉 This is a well-deserved honor.
We've prepared a completely legitimate and highly scientific quiz.
Take the quiz, then drop your results in the comments:
🤓 Confidently Wrong
🌱 Chestnut Curious
🌰 Chestnut Expert
#AmericanChestnut #TreeID #ForestEducation #ChestnutTrees #NativeTrees
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Just a few years apart: the same wild American chestnut tree before and after chestnut blight took its toll.
Enter our 2026 Photo Contest from now until the end of December!
#americanchestnut #chestnutblight #ForestEcology #NativeSpecies #ForestConservation
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