Meet the Trees
Meet the American Chestnut Trees in our Breeding Program
Thanks to your generosity, The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) is making remarkable progress toward a bold and historic goal: restoring the American chestnut to its native range in the eastern forests. Through cutting-edge science and a powerful network of state chapters and partners, TACF now stewards the most blight-resistant and genetically diverse population of majority-American chestnut trees in the world.
These exceptional trees are the foundation of our recurrent genomic selection (RGS) breeding program—an innovative approach that brings us closer every day to a future where the American chestnut once again thrives in the wild. We invite you to meet some of the beautiful and resilient trees you’re helping to bring into the world. These are the future founders of healthy, restored forests—and your support is making it all possible.
The Blight Resistance Scale
We use a scale on which zero is the average blight resistance of wild-type American chestnuts (none) and 100 is the average resistance of Chinese chestnuts (very high). The RGS indicators are conservative predictions of the average resistance we will achieve with each cycle of RGS breeding.
What does a resilient American chestnut look like?
Drag the handle on the slider to see the difference between an American chestnut tree with blight and an American chestnut that is showing resistance to blight.
How is Blight Resistance calculated?
The “blight resistance index” value of a tree is calculated with a weighted formula that combines eight field-measured responses to blight (phenotype data), such as the presence of large cankers. The blight resistance value of each tree reported on this page is the average of that tree’s blight index value and those of all the tree’s relatives, where the relative’s phenotypes are weighted by the degree of relationship to the tree. These calculations are made using a computer model that analyzes the phenotype data along with the DNA data from over five thousand trees in our breeding program.
Forest Founders Gallery
This gallery shows just a few of the hundreds of improved American chestnut trees in our RGS breeding population. For each tree you can view the estimated percent American chestnut (Castanea dentata) ancestry. The rest of the ancestry is Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima) unless otherwise stated. You can also view the estimated blight resistance rating based on the blight resistance scale above.
Tree ID: GABE001-297
Location: Georgia, Berry College Backcross Orchard
American Ancestry: 80.7%
Blight Resistance: 62.6
Year Planted: 2008
Height: not measured
Diameter at Breast Height: 7.5 inches (19 cm) in 2020
Tree ID: VA-LSFA-R26C5
Location: Virginia, Lesesne
American Ancestry: 100%
Blight Resistance: 68.1
Year Planted: 1980s to 1990s
Height: 52 feet (15.8 m) in 2022
Diameter at Breast Height: 19.7 inches (50 cm) in 2022
Nickname: R2-C2
Tree ID: VA-LSFB1-R2C2
Location: Virginia, Lesesne
American Ancestry: 100%
Blight Resistance: 72.3
Year Planted: 2001
Height: 66 feet (20.1 m) in 2023
Diameter at Breast Height: 17.6 inches (44.7 cm) in 2023
Notes: Three stems
Tree ID: VA-LSFB1-R4C4
Location: Virginia, Lesesne
American Ancestry: 100%
Blight Resistance: 60.5
Year Planted: 2001
Height: 65.5 feet (20 m) in 2023
Diameter at Breast Height: 12.6 inches (32.1 cm) in 2023
Nickname: Gladys
Tree ID: VA-LSFB2-R71C2
Location: Virginia, Lesesne
American Ancestry: 100%
Blight Resistance: 79.5
Year Planted: 2001
Height: 49.5 feet (15.1m) in 2022
Diameter at Breast Height: 11.7 inches (29.7 cm) in 2022
Tree ID: VA-LSFB2-R72C8
Location: Virginia, Lesesne
American Ancestry: 84.3% (1.2% Japanese, Castanea crenata)
Blight Resistance: 66.6
Year Planted: 2001
Height: 36 feet (11m) in 2022
Diameter at Breast Height: 18 inches (45.7 cm) in 2022
Tree ID: VA-LSFB2-R79C2
Location: Virginia, Lesesne
American Ancestry: 87.6% (3.7% Japanese, Castanea crenata)
Blight Resistance: 78.3
Year Planted: 2001
Height: 52 feet (15.9 m) in 2022
Diameter at Breast Height: 8.4 inches (21.3 cm) in 2022
Tree ID: VA-LSFB2-R79C5
Location: Virginia, Lesesne
American Ancestry: 74.3% (2.4% Japanese, Castanea crenata)
Blight Resistance: 93.3
Year Planted: 2001
Height: 34 feet (10.4 m) in 2022
Diameter at Breast Height: 6.6 inches (16.8 cm) in 2022
