Article by James Gage
On two beautiful Saturdays in April (April 21 and 28) a total of 20 enthusiastic volunteers met at the Northern Connecticut Land Trust's Swann Farm in Ellington, CT. This hardworking group prepared and planted 233 chestnuts and erected 1,100 feet of 7 foot high deer fence to establish a breeding orchard for blight-resistant American chestnuts.
The one and a half acre orchard includes 188 nuts from a mother tree in Stafford, CT pollinated with pollen from The American Chestnut Foundation's CH283 tree, a third backcross to American that carries blight-resistant genes. Also planted were 45 chestnuts from other sources to be used as controls in measuring blight resistance.
The orchard can be seen on the South side of Reeves Road, approximately
