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The Kentucky Chapter of The
American Chestnut Foundation
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The Kentucky Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (KY-TACF) is hoping to find five to ten "Mother Trees" to pollinate each year. The lifespan of each blooming American Chestnut tree in Kentucky is brief, sometimes only a year from discovery, but each blooming tree can contribute valuable genetic diversity to the effort to breed a blight-resistant tree, incorporating the Chinese resistance genes. Our breeding orchards contain seedlings growing from these nuts for the next steps in chestnut restoration. If you are interested in growing chestnut trees, please contact us! Our president, Scott Freidhof, can be reached at sialia67@windstream.net. Our Louisville Coordinator (including Southern Indiana), Anne Myers Bobigian, can be reached at annemonique@bellsouth.net.
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Above is the range map showing where American chestnuts were found in Kentucky (and Tennesee) at the beginning of 1900. Note that the inner Bluegrass and Western coalfields had few chestnuts.
To the left is the Adair County American chestnut tree being pollinated. Chestnut trees are "self-infertile" and therefore isolated trees must be hand-pollinated to create seeds (and progeny). The Adair County tree is one of the largest survivors in the USA, with a diameter of almost three feet. Click to see a KET slide show about the Adair County Tree. Click here to see March 14, 2008 mine reclamation planting and methods in Tennesee. |
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Dedicated to restoring the keystone forest tree
of the eastern United States, by locating blooming remaining American
chestnut trees in Kentucky and by breeding blight-resistant trees
from Kentucky "Mother Trees".
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| Visit the National TACF site | |||||||||||||
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