Second Annual Meeting of the Tennessee
Chapter of
The American Chestnut Foundation and Pollination Workshop
May 31, 2003
Location:
Bendabout Farm, McDonald, Tennessee, east of Chattanooga (see
map below).
Time:
10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)
Program: 9:30 - Welcome and Registration 10:00 to 10:30 Professor Joe Schibig, "Status of the American Chestnut in Northern Middle Tennessee and South Central Kentucky" 10:30 to 11:00 Clint Neel, "Site Preferences of Castanea dentata on the Northern Highland Rim of Kentucky and Tennessee" 11:00 to 11:30 Chapter Business -- Announcements, elections, committees, goal-setting 11:30 to 12:00 Dr. Kathryn Newfont, Mars Hill College, "Chestnut oral history." 12:00 to 12:30 Dr. Greg Weaver, "Chestnut Ghosts" 12:30 to 1:30 Lunch -- Bring your own picnic lunch or bring hamburgers, hot dogs, and buns for grilling 1:30 to 3:30 Dr. Hill Craddock, Tour of Bendabout Farms chestnut orchards -- instruction on pollination 3:30 -- Meeting Adjourns
Directions:
Our meeting will be at "The Cabin" at Bendabout Farm, in McDonald, TN. The Cabin is one mile east of McDonald Grocery, on the north side of Old Lee Highway, at the end of a long driveway that runs beside a horse pasture.
From the North and East:
Take I-75 southbound to exit 20. Go east toward Cleveland on the US 64 (Cleveland bypass) about one mile and exit the bypass onto US 11 South / Old Lee Hwy / US 64 West. Go southwest on Old Lee Hwy 2.4 miles. Turn right into driveway along horse pasture to cabin.
From the South and West:
Take I-75 northbound to exit 11 toward Ooltewah.
Go east on US 11North / Old Lee Hwy / US 64 East about 6.5 miles
through the village of McDonald and pass the McDonald Grocery
on your right. One mile past the grocery, turn left into driveway
along horse pasture to cabin.
About Bendabout Farm:
The late William Raoul established the first chestnut breeding
orchard (Orchard #1) at Bendabout Farm in the early 1990s by transplanting
surviving American chestnuts from the forest. Two populations
are represented: Lookout Mountain and central Mississippi. The
Lookout Mountain trees are a sampling of the "local"
American chestnuts and the Mississippi trees come from the extreme
southernmost portion of the species' native range. These American
chestnut trees have been used successfully in backcross breeding
since they started blooming in 1996.
Mr. Raoul and his group of enthusiastic volunteers planted the second orchard at Bendabout Farm in 1996 using open pollinated seed (B2F2) from Meadowview. These TACF hybrids have grown very well and will be screened for blight resistance in the summer of 2001.
Chattanooga Chestnut Tree Project volunteers
and students from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga planted
Orchard #1 backcross progeny in the third orchard at Bendabout
farm beginning in 1997. Orchard #3 now includes interspecific
F1 hybrids, second, third and fourth backcrosses hybrids and seedlings
and grafted clones of local and introduced Castanea cultivars.
James Hill Craddock
Robert M. Davenport Associate Professor of Biology
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue, Chattanooga TN 37403-2598 USA
http://www.utc.edu/~jcraddoc/
