Connecticut News
2024 New Leaf, the CT newsletter, is out!
Like Spring is always coming after Winter, the New Leaf is always coming before the Flower and Garden Show! This issue includes the articles Celebrating the 40 years of TACF in Hamden Backcross Breeding Program Update Planting Chestnuts in a Colonial Setting Breeding...
Photo gallery – CT 40th TACF Anniversary Celebration
The American Chestnut Foundation is celebrating 40 years of research and restoration! Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in Hamden started to plant chestnuts as...
2023 Nominations for Officers and Board Members
The CT-TACF Nominating Committee of Jane Harris, Ginny Patsun and John Baker are recommending the following candidates for the Board of Directors and Chapter Officers for 2023. Nominations for the Board of Directors with a term ending in 2025: Jack Ostroff Jack Swatt...
Read the 2023 CT newsletter: The New Leaf
The Connecticut Chapter The New Leaf Spring 2023 Newsletter includes the articles The Dawn of Darling 58 Conservation & Community comes together for the American Chestnut Pollination Workshop at the Old Lyme Library A year in photo Read it...
Volunteer Opportunities
Outreach - we have several outreach events coming up later this month and in April. If you would like to help us spread our message to the public at any of these events please contact us. Outreach Coordinator - we are in need of a member to help coordinate volunteers...
CHESTNUT HARVEST SCHEDULE
CHESTNUT HARVESTING September 16th through September 23 Due to time constraints on my schedule this year, my time this harvest season will be limited. If anyone would like to help harvest burs during the last two weeks of September, please let us know. We will be...
Connecticut Chapter Menu
National Facebook
Lucinda’s got a tree to introduce you to 🌳👋
Meet even more trees at tacf.org/meet-the-trees/
8 CommentsComment on Facebook
This is D2-19-136 if you'd like to view it on our webpage!
Great video, keep them coming.
Great job guys!
Reminder! TACF's 2025 American Chestnut Photo Contest is going on now, with a new, extended deadline!
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. The second-place winner will receive a T-shirt and sticker, and the third-place winner will receive a sticker. All winners will be recognized in a future issue of Chestnut.
Visit tacf.org/2025-photo-contest/ for all the details.
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Celebrate the legacy of Rex Mann—forester, storyteller, and passionate champion for the American chestnut—with this limited edition Leave Tracks t-shirt.
Rex devoted his life to restoring forests and inspiring others to care for the land. Now, you can honor his memory and help carry his mission forward.
🌳 100% of the proceeds from every shirt go to The American Chestnut Foundation (THANK YOU!), supporting the work Rex believed in so deeply.
👉 Pre-order now through August 2: scottmann.com/store/Leave-Tracks-In-Honor-of-Rex-Mann-PREORDER-p768130686
Let’s keep walking the trail Rex helped blaze.
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
We’re excited to share a new animated video explaining TACF’s RGS program!
1 CommentComment on Facebook
Transgenic American Chestnuts are still a much better option. The product of this method will always be a hybrid and that should not be the goal.
One of the greatest ecological disasters the US has ever seen. Chestnut blight wiped out the American chestnut tree in less than 50 years.
A tree that once made up nearly 25% of the eastern forests was reduced to a functionally extinct species.
The Asian fungus Cryphonectria parasitica was accidentally introduced into the United States in the late 1800s. While a few diseased chestnuts were noted in the 1880s and 90s, it wasn't until 1904 that the pathogen was identified in New York City. From that point, the blight spread rapidly. By 1950 the entire range had been consumed.
The fungus causes cankers that spread around the trunk of the tree, girdling it and killing everything above ground. Many root systems still survive today and continue to send up shoots, but these also eventually succumb to blight. Because American chestnuts rarely survive long enough to reproduce, the species is considered functionally extinct.
The American Chestnut Foundation is working to develop blight-resistant American chestnuts that can be used to restore this iconic tree to its native range. Learn more at tacf.org/about-us (link in bio)
145 CommentsComment on Facebook
I think I may have found an American Chestnut tucked away in a backyard
Incredibly important work…it was such a travesty for our forests!
The trees seem to still be intact outside their range in isolated areas. Theres a few large ones here in central Michigan on a peninsula and again on the Leelenau peninsula in the nw lower peninsula. I keep seeing people chime in about adult trees here and there. Seems like there's hope!