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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Follow us to learn more about the blight and what to do if this happens to a tree near you!
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OK, so what I heard, I'm not a bio type, I heard this fungus cannot survive in the soils because the microbes in the soil kill the fungus. This person told me that if you made a mud from the soil around the tree and rubbed it into the cracks where there was infection, that it would kill the blight fungus in that immediate crack, and the tree would heal. Is that for real ?
Holiday cheer is brewing! 🎄🍺 TACF staff joined Sweetbay Brewing’s Patrick Atkins in Abingdon, VA, as he demonstrated how Meadowview-ground American chestnut seeds are being used to craft a rich brown ale for our Chestnuts Roasting & Christmas Market celebration on December 13. Join us for local flavor, music, and chestnut-inspired holiday fun! #AmericanChestnut #SweetbayBrewing #ChestnutsRoasting #HolidayCheers #MeadowviewResearchFarms #AbingdonVA #ForestRestoration
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Kirk🌰🍺!
Join us tomorrow, November 21, 2025, from 11:30AM – 1:00PM (ET), for the next LIVE Chestnut Chat webinar.
Our special guest, Dr. Jessica Rutkoski, is a small grains breeder with a talent for explaining the fundamentals of breeding and quantitative genetics. In her talk, she will describe how modern tools such as genomic selection and high-throughput phenotyping can speed up improvement for multiple traits—and how these technologies can be effectively applied to TACF’s American chestnut breeding program. Jessica is a quantitative geneticist and leads the winter wheat breeding program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
To register, visit: tacf.org/event/chestnut-chat-faster-genetic-gain/
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Will be recording be made available later for those of us who cannot attend midday?
Grab your camera and hit the trails—the American Chestnut Photo Contest is back! We’re looking for striking, creative, and unique images of American chestnut trees and hybrids.
The first-place winner will have their photo featured on the cover of a future issue of Chestnut magazine and receive a one-year TACF membership, along with a T-shirt and hat. Open until December 31, 2025
Visit tacf.org/2025-photo-contest/ for more!
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Fall work is in full swing at Meadowview! 🌰 Lucinda and Dan are planting a Castanea seguinii from Dr. Hill Craddock (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) in our Castanetum, home to chestnut relatives from around the world. Nearby, we’re selecting top performers from a 2018 progeny test—thinning the stand to release the best 10% for future breeding success. #AmericanChestnut #RestorationInProgress #ChestnutResearch #ForestRestoration #MeadowviewResearchFarms #Castanetum #ScienceInTheField
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I have two American chestnuts in my yard if anyone wants clones
Slide show is too fast!
Did the gmo ones get approved yet?