Planting American Chestnut Trees

I took off early from work yesterday to help plant a "first-of-its-kind" American chestnut tree!  This was a Kentucky produced "B3F4" tree, which came from two Restoration Chestnut 1.0 parents growing at the Louisville Nature Center (See this Dec. 2014 post: First B3F4 Nuts from Kentucky ).  This particular nut was produced in 2014.  I harvested it, cold stratified it over the winter in moist peat moss, planted it into a half gallon container and grew it in my house throughout 2015.  In the early fall, I transferred it to my outdoor growing area so that it would "harden off" and go dormant.

Chestnut seedlings growing in a west facing window - 2015.

Hopefully, this special tree will grow well and show good blight resistance.  The parents of this seedling, along with the two other trees planted at the Louisville Nature Center in December, 2012, have grown very quickly (although the mother tree of the seedling has not grown as quickly as the father tree and the other two trees at the site).

Resistance-wise, neither the mother tree nor the father tree have shown signs of blight.  One of the other trees located at the planting showed signs of blight in the late winter/early spring of 2015.  The point of infection was mud packed and the tree did very well throughout the 2015 growing season.  I anticipate that when the mud packing materials are removed this spring, there will be no signs of blight at that particular spot.  If you want to learn more about mud packing blight cankars, look at this link:  http://masschestnut.org/mudpackingCankers.php

Stay tuned for upcoming announcements and chestnut activities within the Louisville area.  We need to do some display planting maintenance, support the early summer (May/June) pollination efforts across the state, and continue to spread the "chestnut word" to our neighbors, coworkers and friends.

Happy New Year!