On February 19, Rob Beaton and Wick Fary joined members of the Rivanna Chapter and American Chestnut Foundation staff and volunteers at the Virginia Department of Forestry Crimora Nursery, to plant some 800 stratified chestnut seeds. 

The Virginia Chapter of TACF maintains a greenhouse at the nursery, where select hand-pollinated seedlings are grown for a year before transplanting to trial growing plots at Lesesne State Forest State Forest and elsewhere in the state.

Under the supervision of Cassie Stark, Director of Science Implementation for TACF, we prepared growing media and filled pots, nestled pre-stratified seeds below the surface in 12-inch deep pots, and–the hardest and most critical part!–affixed labels to tags that identify the parents of each new tree.

Seeds are sourced from TACF-monitored individuals from throughout the historic range of the tree, with the goal of breeding an ideal combination of blight and other pathogen resistance along with typical species traits that will be stable across generations when reintroduced to less controlled environments.

Submitted by Wick Fary