Successful Day Inoculating at New Kent

We had a great day on July 20th at the New Kent Forestry Center! It was a gorgeous day and we stayed cool enough in the shade of the ops building. With 24 folks working, we were able to inoculate about 1400 chestnut seedlings in under 5 hours. That’s pretty impressive and it shows how much progress we can make when you are willing to volunteer to help out!

Volunteers inoculating chestnut seedlings at New Kent Forestry Center

Many hands make quick work!

Having a great team of volunteers made it a very successful day!

The volunteers stand behind their handiwork.

The best part is how much fun it was working with great folks. So with total sincerity, I thank you all. I feel really great about our day and I’m really excited for this research. Fingers crossed, we will learn important and exciting things about the ability of these chestnut trees to survive when replanted.

Another notice will be posted in a couple weeks as we start rating cankers. Any volunteers interested in helping with that will be welcome. Stay tuned.

Thanks again and I hope to see you all again soon.

Kindest regards,

Tom

Thomas McNeill Saielli

Mid-Atlantic Regional Science Coordinator

The American Chestnut Foundation

900 Natural Resources Dr

Charlottesville, VA 22903

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The American Chestnut Foundation

3 days ago

In a recent article for The Conversation, Dr. Steve Strauss discusses how advances in genomics and biotechnology are creating new opportunities to support chestnut restoration.

We're pleased to see perspectives from a longtime TACF collaborator. Steve served on our Science Advisory Review Committee in 2018 and currently has a pending proposal with TACF to improve genetic transformation methods for chestnut.

Give the article a read and let us know what part of chestnut restoration you're most excited about: theconversation.com/new-genetic-approaches-raise-hopes-for-restoring-the-american-chestnut-to-its... ... See MoreSee Less

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Somewhere, waiting discovery deep inside the remote part of a forest towers a thriving blight resistant nut filled American Chestnut (surrounded by dead ones just so we know it was exposed and surviving). We can hope. Taking inspiration from the Dogwood saga.

Professors at S.U.N.Y E.S.F put a wheat gene in to Chestnuts years ago and have growing them

I thought the blight only killed the tree above the ground and not the root system that's why the chestnut resprouts and grows until it gets a scar on it and the blight kills the sprouted tree back down to the ground leaving more viable root system to sprout again in the future.

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The American Chestnut Foundation

7 days ago

Unlike most forest trees that rely mostly on wind, American chestnuts recruit insects too.

#americanchestnut #environmentaleducation #pollinator #nativetrees #dronefootage ... See MoreSee Less

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Okay, who was in our Monocacy Orchard. MDTACF.

The American Chestnut Foundation

1 week ago

Did you know some plants actually benefit from fire? Recently burned areas often provide the sunlight and reduced competition that species like blueberries and American chestnuts need to flourish.

#americanchestnut #nativeplants #ForestEcology #conservation #NatureEducation ... See MoreSee Less

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Yes! Across the Eastern US, almost all of our most important keystone , overstory trees are fire adapted (pyrophytic 🔥). (Except in bottomlands/riparian/wetland zones, for the most part). This includes Hickories, the upland Oaks, certain pines, especially Longleaf, and Chestnuts. Many Oaks in particular are struggling with recruitment now due to fire suppression, among many other issues. This process is called mesophycation btw. Mesophytic natives like Maples 're-engineer' forests through their dense, moist leaf litter to retard-fires. Invasives make it worse. This is important because Oaks are THE top keystone plants here, hosting more species of Lepidoptera (Moths and Butterflies) than any other plant genus in the US: 500-900 species. Most of these caterpillars will become inconspicuous "little brown moths" , but they form an important massive bottom-tier of the food pyramid. After all, even though birds can source berries from a variety of plants , it takes 6-9000 caterpillars to raise a single clutch of songbirds.

I really appreciate what you are doing.

Thank you!

The American Chestnut Foundation

2 weeks ago

PICA, the Printing Industry of the Carolinas Awards, is celebrating its 60th year as the ultimate showcase of excellence in printing, and TACF has something to celebrate too.

Our partner in printing (BP Solutions Group) has entered Chestnut magazine in this competition for nearly 10 years and of those, TACF, BP, and designer Lisa Alford have received an award nearly every year, some of which included multiple awards within the same year!

Chestnut once again received a PICA Award for the 2025 competition, winning “Best of Category” for its “Sheetfed Magazine Series.” TACF is thrilled to have received this honor and to celebrate it with you!

Want to see what this award-winning magazine is all about? Become a member!

#americanchestnut #magazine #science #forestecology #explore ... See MoreSee Less

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Big congratulations to you Jules! 🎉🎉 This is a well-deserved honor.

The American Chestnut Foundation

2 weeks ago

We've prepared a completely legitimate and highly scientific quiz.

Take the quiz, then drop your results in the comments:

🤓 Confidently Wrong
🌱 Chestnut Curious
🌰 Chestnut Expert

#AmericanChestnut #TreeID #ForestEducation #ChestnutTrees #NativeTrees ... See MoreSee Less