Restoration Research of the American Chestnut (Part 2: Science in Action) 

What a wonderful mission......restoring the American chestnut....Thanks

I am 78 years old and can remember going to a family friends farm in Hudson NH from our house in Somerville, Ma.. Out in frond of the farm house was a very big and beautiful chestnut tree. We would bring home a bag of chestnuts for roasting. One year we went up and the tree was gone. I look back at those days with fondness. If only we could plant another chestnut tree in it's place.

I’m currently attending the school with the professor that discovered the gene that makes the trees resistant to blight. It was found in a form of wheat plant!

Most people have no idea of what we're now missing as the American chestnut has left living memory. It was a staple food crop for countless species, including our own. Thank you for what you're doing. We will not reap the rewards, but our children and theirs will at least thank you for this.

Happy to see the restoration success thus far.

A fantastic program ! Keep up the good work.

On a mill trip to Canton NC I attended a presentation of the great American Chestnut and it's unfortunate demise. It was believed then that importing the Chinese Chestnut brought the blight that was responsible. As per this presentation, many attempts have been, and are being made to eliminate the blight and restore that magnificent tree. Hope they succeed.

Well that was a shame to lose those big old trees. I've starting growing my own Chestnut trees here in Central Ontario and hope to introduce these trees back into our landscape in a couple years. Also I might add I've been watching this channel for a little while now and you have some good videos in your library except for one that I ran across yesterday, it was about stream restoration which is something I'm doing now and have been for 3 years on a creek that runs through my property, so all information is great to see. Anyways the comments were turned off on that one, unlike all the other vids you have. I think you know which one I'm talking about...it was more about the woman excavator operator than the stream.

What gets me is the complete lack of capability to be educated in this country. There was a root rot fungus introduced in the mid 1800's and no one LEARNED ANYTHING. Like hey maybe we shouldn't let in species that might complete exterminate another species. I thank you and congradulate you (The U.S forestry service) for your service and determination to fix this huge problem. I wonder if there is a tree planting campaign going on.

Trying to plant some in northern Idaho! It would be cool to get an orchard up here on my property!

It seems that this effort will take 300 to 400 years before the American Chestnut reforestation can be considered fully restored.

Suzanne Simard has some interesting observations of trees in general. I thought it was interesting that trees don’t compete for the canopy as I was always but, rather they share nutrients and parent the other trees.

My father told me about this blight. In upstate Pa. one can find young American Chestnuts, but they do die off rather young. When I was a kid there was a small section a few miles from us where we could actually pick the chestnuts. That patch is gone too.

So interesting, thank you for sharing this with us !

Great work! I remember making necklaces out of chestnuts as a kid - wore em at holloween as a “friar” - like friar tuck - cool to see the hairy pod covering again. Don’t give up!

Why not plant to reforest strip mines?

You all should try planning in northeast Ga maybe in hiawassee Ga when I was a kid they had a lot of chestnut trees

Super interesting!

Can the Pure American be grown outside the Historic Range with no damage from the fungus and root rot?

Good luck everyone, all the best.