In September, Georgia chapter members Tom Pachinger, Ken McDonald, and Mike Hinson located several blooming American chestnut trees, including several with small burrs. 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.

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. The winter issue of

the Georgia Sprout will provide an update on the status of the trees, including our efforts to get official permission from the U.S. Forest Service to do the spring pollination work.