In
September, Georgia chapter members Tom Pachinger, Ken McDonald, and
Mike Hinson located several blooming American chestnut trees,
including several with small burs. The promising site for our future
pollination efforts is the Pocket Recreation Area of the
Chattahoochee National Forest near Rome.
"We found a site where a tornado had gone through about 3 years
earlier and really exposed the eastern side of the mountain to sun
light," commented Tom in a recent email." We found 3-5 trees 12-20'
in height, and another dozen or so ranging from 4-6' in height. The
tallest tree has two burs on it, one of the two appear malformed to
us and we can see no sign of blight on this tree," added Tom.
A follow up visit by Tom and Ken was made in early October, which
revealed more than a dozen potentially
blooming trees. Tom and Ken were accompanied on the October trip by
acting chapter president Don Davis, who concurred that the site may
be the chapter's best for spring pollination efforts. "I am confident
that several of trees will bloom in June," commented Don, "especially
if we perform release work around the trees and give them plenty of
fertilizer in the spring.
If the trees look healthy in
April of 2005, the chapter plans to pollinate several of the trees
with blight resistant pollen taken from trees at the American
Chestnut Foundation's primary research farm at Meadowview. Nuts from
those trees would then be used to start the first chapter orchards in
the state. |
