Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Story from the New York Times. The American Chestnut Foundation is based in Asheville:
More than 50 years after nearly being wiped out in eastern U.S. forests by a deadly imported fungus, the American chestnut may be on the comeback trail.
American Chestnut Foundation scientists say they have bred the U.S. tree with a blight-resistant Asian chestnut to produce a hardy variety that retains about 94 percent of its original genes.
The foundation and its partners, the U.S. Forest Service and the University of Tennessee, announced last week that the first-ever crops of blight-resistant saplings are thriving after their first growing season in three national forests.
“The successful plantings are another step in the effort to reintroduce this keystone species back into its native range,” said Roger Williams, the service’s director of forest management for the Southern Region.
“The American chestnut is important because it was once an integral part of the Appalachian culture, providing food for wildlife and contributing to the diversity of the forest ecosystem,” Williams added.
A recent study also suggests that the tree’s rapid growth rate makes it one of the best sponges for greenhouse gases. Purdue University professor Douglass Jacobs’ work suggests that the tree’s superior carbon capacity makes it an ideal candidate for forest restoration projects and carbon-offset schemes, particularly on marginal farmland in the Midwest (Greenwire, July 1).
The chestnuts planted last year in national forests in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are the first of the blight-resistant variety to be grown in natural forest settings. About 1,200 were planted in undisclosed locations, 500 of which were engineered to resist the fungus.
