Kentucky 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...
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Collection of dormant "Scions" from wild American Chestnuts March 3, 2026
On a day with steady rain.....another key action to help preserve KY American Chestnut DNA for future tree breeding options.
Thanks to years of searching for wild American Chestnuts and documenting them in the TreeSnap.org APP, KY Chapter President Ken Darnell was able to guide Dr. Austin Thomas of UK Forestry Dept., and KY Chapter Board Member, to several widely scattered wild American Chestnuts.
40 scions were chosen by Dr. Thomas, wrapped in wet paper towels and placed into location labeled, one gallon size baggies. These scions will be kept moist and refrigerated for around two weeks until prime grafting time.
Dr. Thomas is experimenting with grafting scions that that are a few inches long onto "large" Chinese Chestnut trees to reduce the potential of blight, and to maximize the growth of these scions into branches that will be control pollinated to produce full American nuts, with full Kentucky DNA, that can be planted into our full American GCO Orchard (Germplasm Conservation Orchard) to expand our on hand inventory of Kentucky DNA diversity.
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Great work!
Kentucky Chapter Partnered with Kentucky Division of Forestry, UK Forestry Department, Greenup High School FFA Chapter, and several other Conservation Groups at "WOODS and WILDLIFE for YOUR WALLET" February 26, 2026 This was the 10th Annual event.
Greenup County is within the original range of the American Chestnut in northeast Kentucky.
Thank you Bill Knott, KDF Chief Forester Morehead Branch for inviting us. 😃
First photo shows veteran KDF Ranger and KY Chapter Board Member with Ken Darnell, KY Chapter President, talking with interested "Chestnutters" at KY TACF Display Table. We picked up 12 people who signed our request form for more information, which will quickly be emailed to them.
Greenup High School FFA coordinated a wonderful BBQ dinner for all.
Presentations were conducted in three different classrooms, every 45 minutes, allowed attendees to choose three out of nine presentations to attend. See last photo with Presentation Schedule.
Besides meeting new people interested in the work of national TACF and of the Kentucky Chapter's work, we were able to "catch up" with several veteran Partners and Volunteers. * * * * *
Door prizes donated by the participating organizations, and were given away after the last round of Presentations. Kentucky Chapter donated two groups of three germinating full American Chestnuts with rodent shelters and stakes, plus two dormant seedlings with shelters and stakes.
@Kentucky Division of Forestry
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Grafting wild Full American Chestnut Scions onto Chinese Chestnut Trees in TACF / EKU Hybrid Orchard, Richmond, KY February 19, 2026
Kentucky Chapter Board Member, Dr. Austin Thomas, preparing to graft full American Chestnut scions, from our "TreeSnap" Inventory. He has successful grafting experience with other tree species.
American Chestnuts are difficult to graft and keep alive long enough to produce nuts. Dr. Thomas will use larger diameter scions of 6 mm up to 12 mm (nearly 1/2") that we will collect in early March from wild trees, to then graft on higher, fast growing branch tips on a few Chinese Chestnuts planted in the TACF / EKU as "Process Controls".
Chinese Chestnuts are healthy and resistant to the blight to provide the best possible growth energy to the American scions added to the tips of branches that are receiving full sunlight. Grafting wax and grafting tape will be applied to the graft union to maximize strength of these larger scions. Additionally, a cellophane bag will be placed over the union to increase temperature.
We realize that successful grafting per centages are typically low........Goal is to develop a few full American branches that will produce Controlled Pollinated nuts, with selected father pollen, quickly, in perhaps three years. Those valuable nuts will then be planted in our Full American KY DNA Germplasm Conservation Orchard at KY Division of Forestry's Morgan County Tree Nursery.
Dr. Thomas is a Scientist at UK Forestry Department, primarily working on the genetics of the White Oak Initiative, and also dedicates some of his valuable time to work on Chestnut Research Projects with TACF Scientists and Science Partners. He received his PhD at North Carolina State in Forestry and Environmental Resources, Minor in Entomology.
The last photo shows KY Chapter President Ken Darnell evaluating with Dr. Thomas, several of our BETTER hybrid Americans in the EKU Orchard. We will continue to cut out lower blight resistant trees until only our BEST 1% remain (about 40 trees out of 3,650 planted). Those few BEST trees will be utilized in next round of breeding for increased blight resistance in the next generation of orchard trees.
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If I may suggest, get rid of those plastic tubes that result in mice nests and replace them with tubes made from hardware cloth, quarter to a half inch prevents rabbits mice and voles