What: Restoring Virginia’s Chestnuts West of the Blue Ridge
When: Saturday, June 7, 2014, from 2 pm to 5 pm
Where: Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia
1290 Richmond Avenue, Staunton, VA
The public is invited to an informational meeting June 7th in Staunton hosted by the Virginia Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). Anyone interested in learning about restoration of the American chestnut is encouraged to attend. The meeting will start at 2:00 p.m. in the Dairy Barn meeting room of the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia. This is a first step in establishing an active local American chestnut restoration effort.
Participants will learn about the Virginia Chapter’s progress with backcross breeding work to develop blight resistant American chestnut adapted to Virginia’s soils and climate. There will be a demonstration of the controlled pollination process and an exploration of possible future steps to establish a Restoration Branch of the Virginia Chapter to advance this work in areas within driving distance of Staunton.
A key step in the effort to breed locally adapted American chestnut trees is identification of local survivors. Meeting participants will learn how to distinguish American chestnut from other trees and report potential mother trees to advance the work of chestnut restoration. Weather permitting, it may be possible to visit one of the surviving American chestnut trees growing in the area.
Once the mighty giants of the eastern forest, American chestnuts stood up to 100 feet tall, and numbered in the billions. Virginia’s mountains were the in the heart of the American chestnut range. From Maine to Georgia, the chestnut was a vital part of the eastern forest, provided abundant food for wildlife, and was an essential component of the economy. In the beginning of the 20th century the fungal pathogen responsible for chestnut blight, accidentally imported from Asia, spread rapidly through the eastern forests and by 1950 the fungus had eliminated the chestnut as a mature forest tree.
In 1983, a dedicated group of scientists and laypersons formed The American Chestnut Foundation and began a special breeding process, which in 2005 produced the first potentially blight-resistant trees called Restoration Chestnuts 1.0. Now assisted by more than 5,000 members and volunteers in 23 states, the organization is undertaking the planting of Restoration Chestnuts 1.0 in select locations throughout the eastern US.
The Virginia Chapter of TACF advances the work of the American Chestnut Foundation in the Commonwealth of Virginia. TACF is a 501 (c) 3 conservation organization headquartered in Asheville, NC. For more information on TACF and their work to restore the American chestnut tree, contact TACF Director of Communications Mila Kirkland at (828) 281-0047, email: gro.fca@alim, or visit www.tacf.org.
For more information, contact Kathy Marmet moc.liamg@temramyhtak.
