GA-TACF Members, Collaborators, and Interested Others!
Our annual chestnut harvest period is just about over, having been hampered a bit by the extended spell of hot, dry weather. The days have begun to feel more seasonal now, so it’s time to think about fall happenings!
Here are some activities to look forward to this fall (please share!!):
1) Hemlockfest, Fri-Sun, Nov. 1-3, Dahlonega, GA. HemlockFest is a fantastic three day music festival that includes camping and fun for all ages. Proceeds are used to help save North Georgia’s Hemlock trees and restore American chestnut trees! See http://hemlockfest.org/blog In addition to coming out to enjoy the great music, arts and crafts, and various exhibits and events, GA-TACF is looking for volunteers to help us with our educational display booth 
(pack in/set up Fri morning, working booth Fri afternoon, all day Sat., and Sun morning, and tear down/pack out early Sun. afternoon). If you are interested in helping us out, please contact us at moc.liamg@tuntsehcag! Even if you can’t volunteer, please come to enjoy the “Hemlockfestivities”, contribute to a great cause, and learn more about our organization!
2) Trees Atlanta Events: a) Speaker Series: A Race to Save the American Chestnut. On Thursday Nov 07 from 7 – 8pm, TACF’s Southern Regional Science Coordinator, Ben Jarrett, will speak at the Trees Atlanta TreeHouse. Ben will discuss the American Chestnut as a key species of the Eastern forest and show how TACF is using state-of-the-art approaches to restoration of this speces. For more info on his talk, click here! b) Workshop: The Flavors of Chestnuts. On Saturday Nov. 16 from 10 am – 12 noon at Trees Atlanta Kendeda Center, join GA-TACF President Kathy Patrick for a fun morning of chestnut exploration! Kathy will dive into the history of the American chestnut tree as an iconic part of our culture. She’ll teach cooking methods that take advantage of the nutritious nuts, and provide samples of various dishes with chestnuts. Further, she’ll explain current restoration efforts of the American chestnut, and give you tools to support chestnut tree populations. For more info on Kathy’s workshop, click here!
3) Chestnut orchard plantings. We have 300-400 small seedlings to plant this fall at each of two seed orchard sites: Flint orchard, on private property near Waleska (north of Reinhardt University) and Richards orchard, on private property northeast of Ellijay (Southern Road), The Flint planting is tentatively set for Saturday December 7, and the Richards planting has yet to be scheduled, but will probably be scheduled for late winter 2020. Details will be provided soon for both of these events. Volunteers should bring heavy duty battery powered drills, if available, and dress for the weather/outdoor work. Planting tools and materials, as well as snacks and water will be provided. The seedlings are very small (9 inch plugs) and relatively easy to plant, but we have a lot of them to plant, and the work goes much more easily with a large number of volunteers. So, we really need the help! If you are interested, please contact us at moc.liamg@tuntsehcag and indicate which site for which you’d like to volunteer.
4) Winter stem collection for grafting. Because so few wild American chestnut trees produce viable seeds in GA, we have not been able to include trees from many areas in our breeding program. It is very important to get material from wild sites into orchards were trees can be “babied” and brought to reproductive condition for breeding. One way to do this is to graft stems taken from stump sprouts or the canopies of wild trees. We are looking for volunteers to help collect material for us this winter, and can share a sampling protocol with anyone interested in helping out. BUT, in order to make sure that the proper material is collected, it may be necessary to mark trees this fall while trees are still in leaf. You may use the map link below to identify specific locations where wild trees are already known to occur, or you may find trees on your own (contact us at moc.liamg@tuntsehcag if you would like to submit new locations for wild American chestnuts). In any case, now is the time to locate and mark trees for collecting stems, which itself needs to be done where stems are leafless and fully dormant (Dec/Jan/Feb time frame).
GA Wild Chestnut Map (note: we are only interested in material from American chestnuts [C. dentata] at this time) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Vvw5wQ3SrmwFk0Q82r6DGAnMPzm6cyAq&usp=sharing
Thanks,
Martin Cipollini, GA-TACF Science Coordinator
