Connecticut News
News from Salem and Old Lyme
By Dr. David Bingham A group of Connecticut Chapter volunteers descended on the Salem orchard on April 14th, and planted about 200 nuts before dark on a beautiful day. Fifty of the nuts were from a native American Salem tree. These nuts were harvested last fall and...
Time for Sighting Chestnuts
There are certain routes I frequently drive in Connecticut based on certain chores or repetitive tasks ... meetings, work, chauffering kids to their sports. One frequent drive is up Route 8 from Bridgeport to Winsted. I was a little shocked last weekend while making...
CT-TACF Featured in Hartford Courant
Today's Hartford Courant features a story by Columnist Steve Grant, focused on TACF efforts to restore the Americant chestnut. The article contains a picture and quotes by Leila Pinchot, and additional quotes by Sandy Anagnostakis. Hopefully it will provide some...
Growing in Guilford
by Leila Pinchot I visited the orchard today, and I was delighted to see that 15 of the 20 nuts have sent up shoots (see attached photo). Nuts can sometimes wait until July to sprout, so we may have even more seedlings develop. Thank you all for planting the orchard,...
A Great Day At Great Mountain Forest
By Leila Pinchot On Tuesday, May 29th the Connecticut Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, in collaboration with Great Mountain Forest Inc. and the Housatonic Valley Regional High School, planted the last chestnut orchard of the season. Sixteen students from...
Salem Orchard and David Bingham
A fine article was published today in New London's the Day as written by David Collins. See the attached document.
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National Facebook
Have a great photo of an American chestnut tree, bloom, bur, leaf, restoration planting, volunteer event, or wildlife interaction? We'd love to see it! (Photo pictured taken by 2025 2rd place winner Eric Sizemore)
First Place receives:
- Their photo featured on the cover of a future issue of Chestnut magazine
- A one-year TACF Seed Level Membership (a $300 value!)
- TACF merchandise
Second and Third Place winners will receive:
- TACF swag
- Recognition alongside the first-place winner in the 2027 Spring/Summer issue of Chestnut.
Submit your entries by December 31, 2026.
Visit the following link for more information and complete submission details: tacf.org/2026-photo-contest/
#AmericanChestnut #PhotoContest #TACF #ChestnutMagazine #ConservationPhotography #ForestRestoration #NaturePhotography
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Josh Roudebush win it all bro I might know a few big boys for the shot
A bee enjoying a well deserved break after the chestnut pollination period. The tree it rests on is a hybrid castanea pumila x alabamensis (dwarf chestnut x Alabama chinquapin).
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Voles got my chestnut, planted spring 2025
August Events! Double check with your states Chapter about events in your area.
Visit the following link for more information on the events: tacf.org/events/category/tacf/
#americanchestnut #Connecticut #NorthCarolina #SouthCarolina #getinvolved
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In a recent article for The Conversation, Dr. Steve Strauss discusses how advances in genomics and biotechnology are creating new opportunities to support chestnut restoration.
We're pleased to see perspectives from a longtime TACF collaborator. Steve served on our Science Advisory Review Committee in 2018 and currently has a pending proposal with TACF to improve genetic transformation methods for chestnut.
Give the article a read and let us know what part of chestnut restoration you're most excited about: theconversation.com/new-genetic-approaches-raise-hopes-for-restoring-the-american-chestnut-to-its...
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Somewhere, waiting discovery deep inside the remote part of a forest towers a thriving blight resistant nut filled American Chestnut (surrounded by dead ones just so we know it was exposed and surviving). We can hope. Taking inspiration from the Dogwood saga.
Professors at S.U.N.Y E.S.F put a wheat gene in to Chestnuts years ago and have growing them
I thought the blight only killed the tree above the ground and not the root system that's why the chestnut resprouts and grows until it gets a scar on it and the blight kills the sprouted tree back down to the ground leaving more viable root system to sprout again in the future.
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.