Tom Saielli, TACF Southern Regional Coordinator, and Larry Taylor, TN-TACF member, inspect a trial planting of American chestnut trees in a light gap at the Eagle Point Railroad in preparation for a large B3F3 progeny test on this beautiful Cumberland Plateau location.
In the mid 1800s, two American Chestnuts were planted in what is now Tumwater, WA. Being so far outside the native range (and being across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains), they escaped the blight fungus that killed the chestnuts in their native Appalachian range. These two trees are amazing and can give you a sense of the size and beauty of American Chesnut trees regularly reached before the blight. Getting to sit under the shade of two mature chestnut trees was a true pleasure and one that not many have experienced.
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I'd plant the crap out of them if I lived out there
It’s so heartbreaking that they aren’t still abundant.
