A Visit to the Pennsylvania Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation

Many of you are aware that I am a faculty member at Penn State Brandywine, right across the way from Tyler Arboretum.  Several times a year, I make the journey to the Penn State University Park campus in State College – which also happens to be the home of the Pennsylvania Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (PA-TACF)!  I have volunteered at Tyler’s chestnut nursery, and I’ve helped bag the harvested chestnuts.  Now, I know to where those chestnuts are shipped!

The PA-TACF office is in the Forest Resources Laboratory Building.  On a sunny/windy morning, I headed over to meet with Chapter Administrator Stephanie Bailey.  Stephanie was incredibly kind to allow me to spend a couple of hours with her, and she took me around their facilities and over to the chestnut orchards on campus.  Stephanie was incredibly knowledgeable about the program and the activities of the chapter – for example, did you know that Tyler is one of more than 150 (probably closer to 200!) chestnut orchards for the PA-TACF???

I learned that the hybrid chestnut seed orchard at Penn State began in June 2002 as a partnership between the PSU College of Agriculture, PSU School of Forest Resources, and The American Chestnut Foundation.  The orchard began with 257 three-month old seedlings, with more being added each year.  There are now three orchards established in State College.

I’ll let the photos below tell the story of my visit!

The refrigeration units that house the chestnut seeds we harvest from Tyler.

I even found a bag with a “Tyler” label!

Then it was out to one of the greenhouses to see the seedlings start their growth.

Then, it was time to head out to the orchards!  For those of you on top of the classification for the backcross breeding program, the chestnut trees at Penn State are BC3F2.

A beautiful view across the orchard. You can see one of the plots, where 150 trees from each “family” (cross) are planted to ensure that at least oen of them is homozygous for blight resistance.

Rows and rows of tubes to protect the seedlings put in place by volunteers (and at times, knocked down by groundhogs!).

I had so much fun going around and seeing the work being done by PA-TACF in State College.  Stephanie was an excellent host and was so enthusiastic!  She is the perfect person to represent PA-TACF, and I know our Tyler chestnuts are in excellent hands!

And feel free to view even more photos from my trip!

 

 

Scientific American reports on the American Chestnut Tree

Work will not begin at the Tyler Arboretum chestnut nursery for a few more weeks, but you can get a head start on learning about the American Chestnut Tree in this month’s issue of Scientific American.  This magazine does a great job writing about science topics without the jargon for a non-science audience.

The website for the March 2014 issue of Scientific American only gives a short preview for William Powell’s article titled The American Chestnut’s Genetic Rebirth (A foreign fungus nearly wiped out North America’s once vast chestnut forests. Genetic engineering can revive them), with the full article available in the print issue.  But there is a wonderful web article by Ferris Jabr available for free titled A New Generation of American Chestnut Trees May Redefine America’s Forests (Before an exotic fungus nearly wiped them out in the late 1800s, abundant chestnut trees shaped the forest ecosystem, providing food and shelter for numerous other species. In coming decades Chestnut trees engineered to battle the fungus could restore these lost relationships).

In diving deeper into the archives of Scientific American, I discovered that this magazine has been reporting on the American Chestnut since at least 1855, with an article titled Grafted Chestnut Trees.  Additional articles include:

1906 – A Disease Which Threatens the American Chestnut Tree

1912 – The Chestnut Tree Blight

1913 – Fighting the Chestnut Bark Disease

1915 – Chestnut Blight Poisoning

1990 – Chestnut Blight

2009 – Chestnut Trees Return to the Eastern U.S.

2009 – Chestnut’s Revival Could Slow Climate Change (*full article online!)

I find it interesting that there were articles in the early 1900’s, and then a large gap in reporting on the American Chestnut Tree for several decades.  It is good that the chestnut is back in the news – we still have so much more to learn, and much more work to do!

I hope to see you in Tyler’s chestnut nursery soon!