I’m going to join the ACF later this year so I can have access to the latest seedlings when they come up for sale. I think the ones they have now will last well over a decade, so I’ll be able to harvest some nuts. By the time it succumbs hopefully they’ll have the genetics dialed in and I can plant a tree that’ll last for the long haul. Even the seedlings you’re growing are going to be awesome. They may not be true American but they came from a tree with good genes and you’ll be able to appreciate them for years to come.
So these are really interesting. I found 2 large flowering Chestnuts today. They’re tall and somewhat straight like an American Chestnut should be. The leaves are off though. I’m almost thinking these were intentionally planted decades ago and that they’re a 50-50 Chinese/American hybrid. I’ll show them to the guy from the ACF and see what he thinks. One thing I noticed since looking at Chestnuts all week is that trees growing in the understory produce wider leaves than their counterparts out in the direct sun.
Since I’ve last posted I located probably 3 dozen more Chestnut trees. Not wanting to bore you all with pictures, I didn’t take any. Funny thing though, these trees seek me out just as much as I do them. I was looking at a picture from last October when I took my kids on a hike. In the background I noticed what looked like a small Chestnut, so recently I went back up into the hills for another look. Sure enough, the one in the picture was one of a dozen that recently sprung back to life when a clearing opened up on a wooded hillside. Who wants to play Where’s Waldo with the Chestnut in this picture?
No, actually the guy stopped responding to my emails. Kind of soured me on the whole foundation if I’m being honest.
Today I found these burs from last year beneath an American Chestnut... I looked up and the tree is loaded with burs this year too. I’ll check back in the fall and with some luck I can beat the animals to at least one Chestnut. I have hopes for this particular tree because there are about 8 more in close proximity with a couple that were also flowering a few weeks back.
What about the prez? Did he get back to you?I find this kind of important about people's/organizations integrity
Nothing from him in weeks. I’m going to write him off at this point. If I find a really nice tree that the foundation should know about then I’ll contact the national headquarters in Virginia directly. I’ll go right above this guy that is either a flake, doesn’t care, or whatever his deal is.
Maybe he had a health problem..but other that that idk....seems weird that he stopped communicating...
I thought of that too. Maybe something happened to him. Maybe I cheesed him off when I sent him pictures of flowering Chestnuts less than a quarter mile from his house that he wasn’t aware of. He even said he wasn’t sure how he missed those, that he drove by that spot daily...
I didn’t dig too deeply yet on growing them from seed. I did see a video on YouTube where someone in upstate New York would collect the nuts in the fall, put them in a 5 gallon pail with sawdust and bury it in the ground until spring. Once the ground thawed he’d dig up the bucket and most of the nuts would have already sprouted, or so he claimed. Transplanting from there sounds easy enough. If I end up finding viable nuts this fall I’ll gladly send you some to try out. I’d like to do the same myself.
Revisiting a very beautiful, 114-foot-tall American chestnut tree that grows in Hebron Googles got a pretty sharp eye on this site.
That's the kind of Chestnut I'm hoping to stumble upon someday. They're out there waiting to be found.
