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Mark this date in the history books
June 25, 2005
A blight resistant American chestnut tree is coming
back to Georgia. About a dozen Georgia Chapter members were on
hand to assist in the pollination efforts of The American Chestnut
Foundation at the Carl Meyer tree in Layfatte. Graves BC2
pollen from the Foundation's
Meadowview
Research Farm in Meadowview, Virginia, was sent to Georgia
to pollinate the Meyer tree.
A large portion
of the land for Meadowview was donated to TACF in 1995 by Georgia
Chapter member Mary Belle Price, in memory of her late husband Glenn
C. Price, a strong supporter of TACF.
Dr. J.
Hill Craddock, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences,
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and two of his students,
Shannon and Lisa, came to assist Georgia chapter members Dr Martin
Cipollini, Amy and Kate (all from Berry College), Mike Hinson, Tom
Pachinger and Ken McDonald (GaTACF pollination team), Board members
Jim and Carolyn Hill, Jerry and Dianne Smith, former GaTACF
president Dr Donald Davis and property owner Carl Meyer. The chapter
hired Alexander Splicing and Tree Service who provided a bucket
truck. Members took
turns being lifted in the bucket to the top of
the 40' tree to pollinate the flowers. A cookout followed as
workers celebrated the momentous occasion.
The purpose
of the backcross breeding program is to produce an American chestnut
tree that retains no Chinese characteristics other than blight
resistance. This program takes Chinese chestnut trees, naturally
resistant to the blight, and crosses them with their American
cousins, resulting in trees that are 50% American, 50% Chinese. These
trees are then backcrossed to the American species, resulting in
trees which are 75% American. Eventually trees will be produced that
are 98% American and be planted in the National Forests as true
native American trees.
The process of producing
seeds and testing those seeds for blight resistance now requires
about five years for each intercross generation.
GaTACF
will start to plant BC3 orchards in the spring to determine which
trees have the resistant characteristics necessary to continue with
intercross breeding. Using Georgia trees
helps preserve the regional diversity of the American chestnut
throughout its original range, which spanned from Maine to Georgia,
and possibly even to Florida, and west to the Mississippi River.
Preserving the genetic material of the American chestnut is crucial
to TACF’s effort to breed a blight-resistant tree.
.Technical
information
- Japanese Moriwase pollen was used as a control
place on about 20 flowers
- Several control flowers were bagged but not
pollinated
- Pollen was Graves BC2 pollen tagged AB248
- The nuts from this pollination effort will be
labeled as GAWAL001 indicating they are from Georgia, Walker
County, tree #1
- Several flowers were pollinated with pollen from
another Meyer tree "Epsilon". These will produce pure
American (blight susceptible trees)
- Several flowers were pollinated with Stover
pollen from Gordon county. This tree is suspected to be a
natural F1 cross between Chinese and American chestnut trees.
Get a copy of
TACF's backcross chart in PDF
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