Backcross orchard planting at Chestnut Flat in Lafayette, Georgia, March 5, 2004

J. Hill Craddock, Professor at UTC, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences (left) stands with members of the Georgia Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation just before planting 50 back-cross American chestnut trees, 2 Chinese Chestnut (resistant) controls and 2 American Chestnut (blight susceptible) controls at the farm of Carl Meyer near Chestnut Flat, Georgia.

This site in Chestnut Flat contains the offspring trees from an F1 tree (American Chestnut from Mississippi + a Chinese Chestnut) and the pollen from an American Chestnut tree from Lookout Mountain, Georgia. It the goal of the Georgia Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation to produce trees that are acclimated in Georgia and that will continue to grow in our climate and soil conditions.

These 1 year old back-cross hybrid trees (BC1) will be allowed to grow for about 5 years and then will be inoculated with the chestnut blight fungus to determine if any were able to inherit blight resistance from their First Generation Hybrid parent (F1). By looking at the chart below, you can see that these trees are 75% American Parentage with none being fully resistant.  If there are any survivors they will be allowed to flower and receive pollen from another Georgia native tree to produce a BC2 generation orchard.