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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Call for Volunteers to Help Plant Full American "Wild Type" Seedlings at Kentucky Division of Forestry's Morgan County Tree Nursery Tuesday April 29, 2025 Beginning 9:00 am
These photos show last year's Partnership Planting of KDF and KY TACF on May 2, 2024 in the full American Germplasm Conservation Orchard at 326 Tree Nursery Rd, West Liberty, KY.
We will be planting another 40 full American Chestnuts this year. KDF has a couple of Forest Rangers coming out to help....... we could use a couple of KY TACF Members or Volunteers as well, hopefully those who would not have to drive far to get to KDF's Tree Nursery * * * * * You will also enjoy seeing the amazing work that KDF conducts in their huge Tree Nursery to grow several other species of tree seedlings for distribution across all of Kentucky.
If you are interested in joining us, please email: moc.rennurdaor@llenradkd Ken Darnell, Mt. Sterling, KY KY TACF Chapter President or text: 859 585 9520 (No calls please)
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Love to find somewhere I can procure a few seedlings for the family farm in greenup county KY. Several acres of reclaim strip mine for planting
Full American Seedlings for KY Germplasm Conservation Orchards Productive day Thursday April 17, 2025 😊
KY Chapter President Ken Darnell met with Dr. Jennifer Koslow, EKU Biology Professor and Vice President KY TACF Chapter. Picked up the 75 full American seedlings potted in the EKU Biology Greenhouse February 12, 2025 and nurtured by Jennifer and her Team. (8 Berea Forest, 20 Hartman, 40 Morgan County.... and 7 EKU hybrid nuts). We achieved a high per centage of germination ****
Ken brought most of the seedlings home to "harden off", before planting at the end of April. Also delivered two Berea Forest full American seedlings to Clint Patterson and Phil Vogel, to be planted in the deer caged area in their in situ orchard, Berea Forest. Ken kept five to be planted Morgan County. In appreciation of Partnership, donated five EKU hybrid seedlings to be planted at Clint's Office/Berea Forestry Outreach Center for public education. ****
The best of the 40 full American Morgan County seedlings will be planted at Kentucky Division of Forestry's Morgan County Tree Nursery, filling in "holes" in their full American Orchard.
The best of the 20 full American Hartman X Hartman seedlings will be planted with Lead Ranger Larry Lemmon at Corps of Engineers Green River Lake Germplasm Conservation Orchard.
@Kentucky Division of Forestry Hannah Leeper TACF Clint Patterson @Berea College Forestry Outreach Center
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JOIN US *** KENTUCKY CHAPTER OF THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION
Thank you KY Members and Volunteers, and national TACF Staff * * * * * * Work is Play when we have other "Chestnutters" lending a hand.
Support US. Join US. support.tacf.org/membership Choose the Kentucky Chapter.
Or contact KY Chapter President, Ken Darnell, Mt. Sterling, KY moc.rennurdaor@llenradkd
Patti Darnell Clint Patterson @Luke Amis@Kentucky Division of Forestry
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Jennifer Koslow, Hannah Leeper TACF
Tandy Ann Deskins
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...