History made in Georgia

History is made in Georgia

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