American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation

this site sponsored by

Virginia Tech

Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology & Weed Science

The American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation is a nonprofit scientific and educational foundation dedicated to restoring the American Chestnut to its former place in our Eastern hardwood forests. Priorities include the development of blight-resistant all-American chestnuts and economical biological control measures against chestnut blight in the forest environment. As of April 2007, American chestnut cooperators have planted 117,792 seedlings and 59,628 seednuts from our all-American orchards.

In the first 40 years of the 20th century, blight destroyed 3.5 billion American chestnuts. What had been the most important tree in our Eastern forest was reduced to insignificance. No comparable devastation of a species exists in recorded history.

Impact of American Chestnut Blight on Forest Communities

When Money Grew on Trees

"It is not beyond the grasp of science to restore the American chestnut to economic importance. It could be accomplished within the next 50 years. "
-- Prof. Gary Griffin, Virginia Tech
Thank you for stopping by!

The principal objective of the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation is to raise funds to support graduate and undergraduate student research projects in Virginia Tech's Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology & Weed Science. This research makes possible the seedling and nut distributions from our all-American breeding program to restore American chestnuts to our forests.

To learn about some American chestnuts in the heart of the natural range which continue to survive although they have been infected with the blight since 1982, click on the link below. While reading this story be sure to keep in mind that blight control is possible only when American chestnuts have blight resistance.

Integrated Management for Chestnut Blight Control

This site was updated last on 8/21/08. Order year-old, bare-root American chestnut seedlings via the new Grower Agreement Form, below.

Previous newsletters are archived below the 2008 Newsletter

Before you ask that question, PLEASE scroll down and check our other pages in The Chestnut Grove Academy, where most of the answers can be found.

<> We supply American chestnut seedlings and /or seednuts to cooperators who make their request on a Cooperating Grower Agreement Form (link below) and contribute a minimum of $20 annually to support our research on behalf of American chestnut restoration. We are now accepting orders. We can no longer send seednuts or seedlings to those growers from previous years who have not sent a current report of their ACCF American chestnut planting.     You may send reports via our ONLINE REPORT FORM at accf-online.org        However, we are currently having trouble with this form (6 reports of complete gibberish have been received in the past week), so please wait until we are able to find and fix the problem.

ACCF chestnuts are all-Americans from open pollination in several Virginia and West Virginia plantings. The mother trees are blight resistant, but this characteristic may be inherited by perhaps 10% of their offspring. More generations of breeding are necessary to produce American chestnuts with blight resistance that is regularly inheritable. Meanwhile, from the first very small sample of F₂progeny of Ruth and Miles which are over 1.5 inches dbh and have their first blight cankers, it appears that in the second generation we may expect at least 25% in this breeding line to inherit blight resistance.   In the past few years, the maturing of many grafts of original blight survivors, as well as selected F1 and F2 progeny, and regular cuttting of those chestnuts in our breeding plots which do not pass durable blight resistance tests has greatly improved the quantity of nuts with improved blight-resistance expectations which we can distribute to our growers. When ACCF stock is planted within the area infested by blight, natural selection will reveal the resistant individuals; scions from these can then be grafted into the new shoots on chestnuts killed by blight. We rely on the reports of cooperating growers to learn the numbers of ACCF chestnuts which have inherited blight resistance.

To take part in the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation distributions, you must fill out and sign a Cooperating Grower Agreement Form and send it with a check made out to ACCF including your annual contribution of $20, if you are requesting seednuts. In addition to the $20, you add the current seedling price (see form, above) if you are ordering seedlings. The seedling price posted is good only while the supply of 2008 seedlings lasts. Mail your Agreement form to: ACCF, Forest Service Road 708, Newport, VA 24128.

If you wish to start an American chestnut revival project, please scroll down to the Chestnut Grove Academy (below) and check out the Habitat page first, to help you locate an appropriate site; next visit the other pages to learn about the disease and the work necessary to establish or reclaim an American chestnut grove. If you find that your land is suitable, it is a good idea to prepare your planting site in the winter or spring, for planting the following fall. If you do not find on these pages the information you need to get started, please e-mail Lucille (below) with your question(s).

The ACCF offers chestnut grafting instruction, to members by appointment, mornings in the month of April at the Blacksburg airport demonstration plot. This instruction does not include nut- or bench-grafting, but is limited to grafting in the field on established root systems. Contact Lucille via e-mail (bottom of this page) in February and propose a date that is not on a weekend.

It is never too early to establish defences to keep deer out of your plantings: here in Virginia, where the deer herd is out of control, we must protect all chestnut seedlings and grafts with staked weldwire cages, 5 feet tall and at least 2.3 feet in diameter, decorated with bright flagging to help deter collisions.

All information on this site was written &/or approved by Lucille & Gary Griffin and John Rush Elkins, respectively, Executive Director, American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation, Professor of Forest Pathology at Virginia Tech, and Research Chemist & Professor Emiritus of Chemistry, Concord College, West Virginia. You are welcome to copy everything printed on this site for your information. Plase credit anything quoted for publication to The American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation. This site was created February 1997; the last update was done 8/21/08. To join or support our work, please send a check for $20 to: ACCF, Forest Service Road 708, Newport, VA 24128.

The Chestnut Grove Academy

If you want to learn more.... Checkout our Webrary

The original Chestnut Habitat was the Eastern United States.

The North American invasion of the Blight Fungus was catastrophic for chestnut trees.

The ACCF revival project is based on a program of Breeding For Blight Resistance .

The ACCF revival project will succeed because of Restoration Efforts of many volunteers:

The Genus Castanea has several species throughout the world.

Chestnut Lore stores memories of the days when American chestnut dominated our Eastern forest.

The American Chestnut Bibliography popular magazine articles, followed by scientific papers of ACCF researchers.

Answers to LEAF QUIZ (from bottom of Castanea Page): 1 & 6 are Allegheny chinkapins, 2 & 5 are Chinese chestnuts, and 3 & 4 are American chestnuts.

Send ACCF e-mail to Lucille at gagriffi@vt.edu