West Virginia News
Spring potting of nuts in 2021
Members of the WV chapter gathered on 13 March at the West Virginia University greenhouse to pot up about 900 nuts. The volunteers worked in three groups of four and the task was accomplished in about three hours. Many thanks to those who volunteered: Janis Boury,...
Good and Bad
When posting images of chestnut, we all love great-looking seedlings or trees. They help promote the work of TACF. However, there are also pictures that depict less than ideal images. These are two images, representing the good and the bad. The picture of a dead...
New plantings in West Virginia
These are two of many new 2020 plantings of backcross chestnuts in West Virginia. These two plantings are in the eastern panhandle in Jefferson and Mineral Counties.
Potting chestnuts in Morgantown
A group of 13 volunteers gathered at the greenhouse on the campus of West Virginia University to pot about 400 chestnuts, including backcross chestnuts from Meadowview, American chestnuts from West Virginia and Maryland and some miscellaneous open-pollinated nuts from...
Nuts germinating in January
Chestnuts that were placed in cold storage the last week of September 2019 are beginning to germinate in mid-January. If you have nuts in cold storage, now is a good time to check for mold and also to see if some of the nuts are beginning to put out a radical.
Fort New Salem
Sam Muncy, WV-TACF treasurer and Sharon Reeves Cottrill, roasted chestnuts at the Spirit of Christmas Festival at Fort New Salem in Salem, WV. Sam stated that more than 75% of the people who attended the festival tasted chestnuts for the very first time.
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National Facebook
Just a few years apart: the same wild American chestnut tree before and after chestnut blight took its toll.
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#americanchestnut #chestnutblight #ForestEcology #nativespecies #ForestConservation
2 CommentsComment on Facebook
American chestnuts produce separate male flowers and bisexual flowers on the same tree?! What a fascinating reproductive strategy for a species once dominant across eastern forests. 🌿
#americanchestnut #treefacts #treeidentification #ForestEcology #SaveOurForests
3 CommentsComment on Facebook
I have had these on the farm for years
BeeKeeper Mango
From looking at the leaves that is NOT an American chestnut. The leaves do not have the good fishhook profile on the edges, and from what can see they look like Japanese chestnut leaves which have small feathery edges.
Small Stem Assays involve inoculating young chestnut stems with the blight fungus and monitoring the resulting cankers, allowing researchers to assess how well different trees respond to infection.
#educational #Informative #americanchestnut #fieldwork #explore
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You don't find out if the tree is resistant until it matures. That could be a decade later.
I am always amazed how big you all can grow them in 1 year. That is how big my second year seed8 gs always are!
Last week, staff at TACF’s national office in Asheville joined Carolinas Chapter President Peggy McDonald, husband Bob, and Chapter board member Jon Taylor for a hike at Albert Mountain in Western NC to visit wild American chestnut trees in search of flowering catkins.
During their venture, the team also came across a few cool amphibians: a red-legged salamander, which only inhabits portions of the southern Appalachian Mountains, and a red-spotted newt, which is much more common, but its brilliant red is stunning!
Of course, the biggest thrill was seeing large surviving chestnut trees and, as the day wrapped up, collecting some beautiful catkins that were high in the canopy of a tree on the way down the mountain. Pollen collected from the catkins will be used in TACF’s southern region breeding program.
#hike #nature #getoutside #americanchestnut #pollination
6 CommentsComment on Facebook
Whoa. Fascinating that some mature American Chestnuts have survived the blight. Taking pollen from these survivors is such a great idea. I didn't realize there were any survivors in NC.
Ils sont en fleur au Québec aussi, ça fait du bien de les voir grandir.
Fantastic