Contact us at gro.fcat@retpahCYK
About Us
Hello from the Kentucky Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation!
We are an active group of Volunteers who work together to help the national effort to restore the American Chestnut back into its native forests. With our Partners, we manage several orchards of hybrid American Chestnuts and full American Chestnuts that facilitate breeding options.
Wild American Chestnuts are still found across Kentucky in their native range forests. While an extremely small number of wild American Chestnut trees survive the blight to grow large enough to produce flowers and burrs, there are many sprouts that grow from the roots of the original trees. Take a look at the original American Chestnut Range Map. American chestnuts like well-drained, acidic sandstone soils. They do not like low acidic clay soils or soils and low areas that hold water.
We invite you to help search for wild Americans and to record them on the free ‘TreeSnap’ app. Or you can contact us via our Kentucky Chapter Facebook Page to let us know their location and if you need help to ID that your trees are full American or a Chinese or Japanese Chestnut, or a hybrid with mixed parentage. You can see general locations of wild American Chestnuts found and mapped to date on the TreeSnap website: https://treesnap.org/ Choose “MAP” from the menu to see general tree locations, with the knowledge that the app moves the exact tree locations by about five miles each to protect the individual trees and the landowners. With the “OBSERVATION CATEGORY” filter box, select “American Chestnut” to remove the visual clutter of other species that are also entered into TreeSnap.
JOIN US. Become a Member. Become a Volunteer. Click on the BECOME A MEMBER button to the right to simultaneously join the national TACF organization, plus the Kentucky Chapter. You will enjoy working beside and developing friendships with many other conservation minded people who are taking a variety of actions to do our part, along with our sister Appalachian state chestnut chapters, to restore this iconic American tree.
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Partnership Action by Kentucky Division of Forestry at KDF Morgan County Tree Nursery
Ongoing care of the 43 full American seedlings, of various parentages, planted May 2, 2024 and a few replacement plantings completed April 29, 2025. Thank you KY Division of Forestry * * * * *
Top photo shows Charlie Saunders who has many years of service with KDF, and has been an active Board Member of the KY Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation for the last five years. Charlie is side dressing the seedlings with slow release DAP ( Diammonium Phosphate) 18-46-0 fertilizer which works well for KDF's thousands of tree seedlings that they plant in their main tree seedling orchard each Spring for sale to Kentucky customers in the Fall. KDF also waters these seedlings when rain does not provide enough natural watering.
The bottom two photos show KDF partners coordinating with KY Chapter President Ken Darnell, May 2, 2024, to plant 43 seedlings to enlarge the older full American Chestnut Orchard that is maintained and utilized in Partnership with the KY TACF Chapter.
This full American Chestnut Orchard preserves DNA from a variety of sources across Eastern Kentucky, to be utilized in future breeding, as our TACF Scientists guide us. * * * * * * *
Kentucky Division of Forestry
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Thank you Kentucky Division of Forestry Partner at the KDF Morgan County Tree Nursery .... in the full American Germplasm Conservation Orchard (GCO) * * * * * * June 25, 2025
We appreciate KDF's Terry Stamper for organizing this event 😊
We cut out a good number of multi flora rose briars and unwanted tree species. Unfortunately, with the heat and humidity, we had to stop work at 11:00, and completed photos and final Q & A by 11:30. Ken Darnell continued until 1:30, applying 41 gallons of rain water hauled to Morgan County in gallon milk jugs, and checking all of our full American seedlings. All full American seedlings that we have planted these last two years, or their replacements, were inventoried as "alive" today.
Also checked the 10 flowering full Americans this year *** and took photos to update KY Chapter's PRIME TRACKING REPORT.
Thank you KDF: L to R: Derek Stamper, Shiane Blundell, Riley Brown, Jim McDonald, Arlinda Fannin, Terry Stamper
...and.... Ken Darnell, KY Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation
...and.... KDF's Orchard Manager Suzy Knott, KDF's Charlie Saunders at the Morgan County Team for all their good work and maximum support ****
...and.... Thank you KDF Orchard Team for bringing out two buckets of gravel, right after lunch to fill the deep ruts in a low, wet section of the farm road out to the American Chestnut Orchard 😊
Ken Darnell, KY TACF, Mt Sterling, KY Chapter President
Kentucky Division of Forestry Lori Bell Riley Brown Shiane L'shae Blundell Kenny Pyles
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Teena Dunn has been held back so much from her job. When Letcher County opened up she applied to be transferred. She was denied because of the buddy system. 2 years earlier she mentored an individual who pulled a "Blue Falcon" on her. She trained him to do what she does. A leadership position opened up in westerner Kentucky and was promised the job. But a blockade was put in her path. They filled it with someone else. Then the person she trained got a unique opportunity to be put in a temporary supervisor spot. They had by passed all the senior leaders to a Rookie. He is barely a Forest Ranger Tech 2 while Teena and numerous others are Forest Ranger Tech 3. 2 of the Rangers is retiring because of the Hazard lack of Leadership. This is what the Supervisor had to say while on vacation on the 4th of July. He has opened a lawsuit suit for "age and disability" discrimination. How does a person who served her Country and deployed to Iraq, 2 College degrees, and 9 plus years of Forest/Fire Warden get beat by a person with 2 years on the job experience. The morale of all the Rangers of the Hazard Branch was crushed by what he said about them on the 4th of July.
Thank you Adair County and Campbellsville Kentucky Division of Forestry offices to again help pollinate the large surviving full American Chestnut tree in their Area:
Huge actions to save the DNA of this magnificent "Large Surviving American Chestnut"
Jackie Goodin, Kenny Pyles, Tammy Rogers, Trevor Garner with Ken Darnell, KY TACF * * * * KDF has been helping to pollinate this tree since 2002 * * * * * This is "THEIR TREE" that they cherish and protect * * * * * * *
It's always tricky to get the timing right when the female flowers are fully ripe for pollinating. Thanks to our tracking the last four years, we have a good record of "PRIME TIME" for this tree.
52 Female Flowers pollinated / 16 Pollination Bags applied containing multiple flowers per bag
The height and diameter of this magnificent tree can be seen in the photos. Note the fluffy, creamy white color of the catkins that cover this tree.
We used two orchard ladders, and an extension pole to pull down branches ( without any breakage occurring *** ) to pollinate female flowers. We also collected catkins, to send pollen back to TACF Regional Science Coordinator Cassie Stark for use on two Large Surviving Americans in Virginia, and one in southern Pennsylvania. In turn, Cassie had sent pollen from full American tree in Virginia, tree LSA # 762. Action: to cross LSA (Large surviving full Americans) X LSA (Large Surviving full Americans).
Pollinating TACF's BEST surviving full American Chestnuts with each others' pollen is a parallel breeding program to TACF state chapters' BEST hybrid American Chestnuts. All to develop a blight resistant American Chestnut.
JOIN US in some of our many actions:
theamericanchestnutfoundation.volunteerlocal.com/volunteer/?id=90472
Kentucky Division of Forestry Hannah Leeper TACF Bill Calvert Barbara Sheehan Kenny Pyles
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Great efforts to save the American Chestnuts 🌰 Thank you all !!
Oh to have a field of these & be able to eat as many as I want would be a dream. My Pa Baker would get some in the late 70’s early 80’s & I loved them 🌰🤗🌰
I hope the few people on here will share and gain more support for this effort
Latest News
Using Pollen from Land Between The Lakes
WE’RE SO HAPPY …….. RETURNED TO STEVE HARTMAN FULL AMERICAN ORCHARD, SCOTTSVILLE, KY near Tennessee Border to apply pollen from three LBL wild Americans, harvested, processed and stored last June by Lee Grace, UK Forestry Technician, from trees previously TreeSnapped...
KY TACF Partnership with USFS Daniel Boone National Forest
Thank you Scott Ray for inviting us to attend DBNF Annual Meeting held at Berea College Dr. Ellen Crocker, Scott Ray, and Ken Darnell, KY TACF Board Members, conducted a presentation on TreeSnap and the State University of New York's "Darling 58" transgenic American...
Many Miles Completed in Search for wild, full American Chestnuts Across Kentucky
Our Kentucky Volunteers have driven and hiked many miles across the state searching wild full American Chestnuts and “Snapped” them into our data base using the free TreeSnap app. We estimate that we have observed close to 4,000 wild Americans, “Snapping” 1,543...