Members of the Georgia Chapter of
the American Chestnut Foundation worked on pollinating a rare
specimen last Saturday in Walker County.
“This is the first time this has ever happened in the state
of Georgia,” said Donald Davis with the foundation, referring
to a bona fide blooming chestnut ready to be pollinated.
The 35-foot tree is on the farm property of Carl Meyer,
located off Lake Howard Road not far from LaFayette.
The American chestnut fell victim to fungus blight from
Asia beginning in New York in the early 1900s.
By 1940 most chestnuts had died from it, as the blight had
progressed southward at a rate of 50 miles per year.
Davis, a professor at Dalton State College said, “My guess
is that it won’t live much more than four or five more years.
It has signs of blight in a few small areas.”
He says the pollen is from blight-resistant hybrid
chestnuts developed at the Meadowview Research Farm in West
Virginia.
“The offspring of this pollination will be state-of-the-art
chestnut trees,” he said. “Not all of the nuts will have the
blight-resistant gene.”
According to Davis, these trees will be tested after three
to four years of growth to see if they have developed
resistance.
