TN TACF members hiked a
chestnut-rich trail in the Smoky Mountains.
"The weather was perfect for this year's
annual chestnut hike, held on Saturday September 20 at the Sugarlands
Mountain trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. With the
temperature in the 70s under a clear blue sky, members of the Tennessee
Chapter climbed to the ridgetop where we found good chestnut habitat
indeed. American chestnut trees were growing in abundance along the
crest of the mountain. With American chestnut one of the most common
trees to be seen, it was a good place to learn about chestnut trees. We
saw trees that were healthy and others in various stages of decline due
to chestnut blight. The most exciting discovery of the day was
four chestnut trees with burs, offering the possibility of some natural
nut production and reproduction by seed. It was an educational and fun
day for all."--Greg Weaver, TN-TACF president.
To see photos,
click here.
New fruiting
American chestnut trees are found in Claiborne and Sumner Counties, TN
in Sept. and Oct., 2008. See the photos
here.
Several of Joe Schibig's chestnut photos accompanied Claire Ploegman's
article on the American chestnut that was published in Southern Inspired
magazine's 2009 Christmas Holiday edition.
Entertainer Dolly Parton recognizes work of her uncle, Bill Owens, and
The American Foundation in a ceremony at Dollywood. (Sept. 4, 2009).
See
Megan Jordan's news release
and
Paul Sisco's photos.
On
Oct. 17-18, TN-TACF members (Sean Fisher, Clint Neel, and Tim Phelps)
set up a booth at the Music and Molasses Festival on the grounds of the
Ellington Agricultural Center. To see photos of the event, click
here, and for more information
on the festival, click this link:
http://tnagmuseum.org/special.html
See Sean Fisher's
photos of the Pickett
State Park hike (Oct. 10, 2009)
Greg Weaver supervised the planting of 37 American and 15 Chinese
chestnut seed in Scottsville, KY on Sept. 30, 2009.
Click here
to read more about the planting.
See the photos.
Tennessee volunteers, Liz Dyer, Jack Torkelson, and Joe Schibig shuck
chestnuts at Meadowview, VA. (Sept. 26, 2009).
Photos
Members of the TN Chapter and nonmembers are invited to participate in a
hike at Picket State Park on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009 --see
details. Also, see the TN calendar above for detailed
directions.
On
Oct. 15 at 6:00 PM, Greg Weaver will give a talk on "Chestnut Blight and
Restoration" to the Sugartree Homeowners Association in Nashville; they
are starting an Arbor Society and this is their inaugural meeting.
TN-TACF member and orchard grower, Vicki Turner, has been active in
starting this Arbor Society.
At noon, on Sept. 4, 2009, there was a chestnut tree planting at the
Back Porch Stage at Dollywood to honor
Bill Owens, Dolly Parton's uncle; Hill Craddock provided the chestnut
tree.
The TN Chapter had its summer annual meeting on August 8,
2009 in the Leiper's Fork area (Williamson County); Greg Weaver,
TN-TACF president hosted the meeting at his farm--see
the Power Point presentations . Also view the
photos.
Janie Becker (Conservation Biologist, Tennessee
Army National Guard) was instrumental in getting an article about
chestnuts in west Tennessee put in several west TN newspapers, including
the Jackson Sun. See:
www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009907270304
Greg
Weaver's article on the history of the American chestnut, its demise,
and restoration appears in the July/Aug. 2009 edition of The Tennessee
Conservationist Magazine. To see the text of his article
click
here.
Pollination time at Meadowview,
Virginia, 2009--see
the photos
Check out Janie
Becker's
photos of the chestnut plantings in Milan, TN and Catoosa Co., GA.
(April 2009). Also, see a
newspaper article about
this planting.
On Arbor Day, 2009,
Matt Harris and Vic Davis planted American chestnut seedlings in the
North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area--see
photos of the planting.
We need volunteers who like to hike
and are interested in inventorying American chestnut trees along the
Appalachian Trail. You need not be a TACF member or tree expect to
participate in this important scientific project--training will be
provided. The May 30, 2009
training session for the Appalachian Trail MEGA-Transect Chestnut
Project will be conducted by U.T./Chattanooga professors, Dr. Hill
Craddock and Dr. Jennifer Boyd. Click
here
to learn more about this opportunity. Also note that this event is
described in the TN Calendar (above).
On
May 18, 2009, two prominent TN newspapers, Knoxville News Sentinel
and Nashville Tennesseean, printed articles about students from
Lake City Middle School in Anderson County and Campbell County's Elk
Valley Elementary School planting American chestnuts on abandoned
coal mine land atop Zeb Mountain in East TN.
See:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/may/18/americanchestnut-seedlings-test-blight-resistance/
and
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009905180321.
Greg Weaver, Tennessee
Chapter President, and Leila Pinchot, UT forestry student, represented
the TN-TACF Chapter at Oak Ridge's Earth Day Festival on April 25, 2009.
Mayor Tom Beehan, Angie Palau (Earth Day Coordinator) and Josh Collins
(Oak Ridge Parks and Recreation Director) were present at the event. See
Greg Weaver's
photos .
Barry Thacker
provided links from the Oak Ridger newspaper that show the mayor of Oak
Ridge, TN planting chestnut trees in Bissel Park as part of the
Earth Day festival held on April 25, 2009. At the event, TN-TACF
president, Greg Weaver, and Leila Pinchot set up a tent which housed
Greg's fine chestnut display. According to Greg, many interested
individuals stopped by to learn about the American chestnut restoration
effort. Hill Craddock supplied 8 chestnut trees for planting in
Bissel Park. These are the links to the event provided by Barry
Thacker:
http://www.oakridger.com/archive/x718271391/Earth-Day-celebrated (
See "more related photos" at the bottom of the page).
http://www.coalcreekaml.com/images/newsGregWeaverOak042709.jpg
Greg
Weaver will provide more photos he took at the event which will be
posted here in the near future.
The
chestnut exhibit
was a popular attraction at the Science Expo held
at Volunteer State Community College, Gallatin, TN (April 2, 2009).
Joe Schibig
delivered a presentation on chestnut research at Mammoth Cave National
Park at the 13th Symposium
on the Natural History of the Lower tennessee and Cumberland River
Valleys held at
Brandon Spring Group Camp at Land Between The Lakes on April 3 and 4,
2010. Abstract and photo of presenters.
To see a March
27, 2009 article in The Knoxville News Sentinel about volunteers
planting American chestnut on abandoned coal mine land on the Cumberland
Plateau, click
here.
To see photos
taken at
TACF's southern regional meeting in Chattanooga on March 7, 2009, as
well as the agenda click
here.
Check out this
website where chestnut memories are recorded:
http://www.cs.uky.edu/~tony/BNB_WEB/
The TN Chapter had its winter meeting on
Feb. 21, 2009 at Bridgestone-Warren County. To see photos of the
events,
click here . To see the Power Point
presentations and the meeting announcement.
click here.
Hill Craddock and Clint Neel help Jim
Newton plant a backcross orchard in Giles County,
TN, on Feb. 7, 2009.
The Clinton Courier News published an article on the chestnut nursery
set up at Briceville School at:
http://www.coalcreekaml.com/newsCour022209.htm
Middle school
classes are asked to develop biogradable pots and an indoor nursery for
growing American chestnut seedlings for restoration on abandoned coal
mine sites in eastern Tennessee
click here.
Clint Neel finds
another father tree in South Cumberland State Park (Nov., 2008);
click to see
photos
A Power Point presentation, Mapping the
American Chestnut at Mammoth Cave National Park, was presented at the
annual Tennessee Academy of Science meeting in Nashville, TN (Nov. 21,
2008).
Click here to view the
presentation.
Images of the 25th Anniversary meeting
of The American Chestnut
Foundation held in Chattanooga, TN (Oct. 24-26, 2008)
See the photos of the TN-TACF
exhibit at the Music and Molasses Arts and Crafts
Festival (Oct. 18-19, 2008).
The Tennessee Chapter of The American Chestnut
Foundation will have an exhibit at the Music and Molasses Arts and
Crafts Festival at the Ellington Agricultural Center in Nashville,
October 18-19, 2008.
Here
is the flyer.
Dr. Hill Craddock, Martin Cipollini, Don Davis
and Bethany Baxter represented The
American Chestnut Foundation at the Society for Conservation Biology
meeting held in Chattanooga, TN on July 13-17, 2008.
Click here for a photo.
Photos of chestnut pollination work (2008)
TN-TACF members will have a chestnut exhibit at
the Conservation Biology meeting which will be held at the Chattanooga
Convention Center. The meeting runs from Sunday, July 13 to
Thursday, July 17. According to Dr. Hill Craddock at U.
T./Chattanooga, the Society for Conservation Biology’s Annual Meeting is
recognized as the most important global meeting for conservation
professionals and students. SCB is an international professional
organization dedicated to advancing the science and practice of
conserving the Earth’s biological diversity. The Society is a global
community with more than 12,000 members world-wide and comprises a wide
range of people interested in the conservation and study of biological
diversity: resource managers, educators, government and private
conservation workers, and students. To participate, or for more
information about the 2008 SCB meeting and TN-TACF's exhibit, please
visit the SCB web pages at
www.conbio.org
The TN Chapter's annual summer meeting will be
hosted by Ed Yost at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville on Aug. 23, 2008.
More details will be provided later. These meetings are always
informative and a lot of fun. To learn more about the Ijam's
Nature center, visit
http://www.ijams.org/
TN-TACF officers, Greg Weaver, Clint Neel, and
Sean Fisher set up a chestnut display providing information on the
American chestnut at the Earth Day festivals in Oak Ridge (April 12) and
Nashville (April 19).
Click here
On April 22, 2008, chestnut seedlings were
planted on the campus of Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, TN
to celebrate Earth Day. The following link has photos and
summarizes the events. http://www.trevecca.edu/info/newsandevents?id=3171
A fine article by the UT Daily Beacon (Apr. 14,
2008) on restoration of American chestnut trees on abandoned coal mines
in the Appalachians:
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=53389
Carol Moore constructed an interesting webpage on
the planting of American chestnut trees by Elk Valley 7th and 8th
graders as an Arbor Day celebration; they were planted on National
Coal's mining site on Zeb Mountain (Apr. 7, 2008)-- click on:
http://www.coalcreekaml.com/ElkValleyArborDay2008.htm
More press coverage of the Zeb Mountain chestnut
planting and the potential for future restoration of the American
chestnut on abandoned coal mine lands:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/31/AR2008033101263.html
Also a video narrated by Barry Thacker on this subject may be accessed
at:
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/chestnut_trees/index.html
(Thanks to Clint Neel for providing the links)
Joe Schibig provided a Community College Day
exhibit on the American chestnut during Legislative Day at the
Legislative Plaza in Nashville on March 19, 2008, and on April 3, 2008
he and four of his students set up a chestnut display at the Science
Expo held at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, TN. The
following Power Point presentation was shown at these events:
Chestnut trees and chestnut people
TN-TACF will have a booth at the Oak Ridge
Earth Day festival on April 12, and the Nashville Earth Day festival on
April 19. Come see us on Earth Day. Here is a link to info about
the Oak Ridge event:
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/020108/com_242806233.shtml
And here is a link for Nashville's Earth Day:
http://www.nashville.gov/earthday/
The March 14 chestnut planting on Zeb Mountain
makes the news. Click link below:
http://www.coalcreekaml.com/ChestnutZeb.htm
To see a Mar. 10, 2008 article in the Knoxville
News-Sentinel about the reforestation of strip mined land with chestnut
and other hardwoods on Zeb Mountain in Campbell Co., TN.
click
here
A Power Point presentation of
TN-TACF Chapter members installing a
chestnut sign and planting American chestnut trees at the Ijams Nature
Center in Knoxville (Saturday, February 23, 2008) is now posted.
Directions to the Ijams Nature Center are at
http://www.ijams.org/about/directions.html
A nice American
chestnut is discovered by hikers in the Smokey Mountains.
(posted Mar. 7, 2008)
Jack Torkelson and
Joe Schibig harvest chestnut wood from a dead American chestnut tree in
Metcalfe Co., KY (January, 2008).
On March 14, 2008, The
Coal Creek
Watershed Foundation (CCWF),
the
Appalachian Regional
Reforestation Initiative
(ARRI)
and
The American
Chestnut Foundation (TACF) are
partnering in the planting of
hundreds of American chestnut seed on National Coal Corporations's
reclaimed mine sites in Campbell County. For more information go
to:
http://www.coalcreekaml.com/AmericanChestnut.htm
To see the
excellent Power Point presentations given at the January 19, 2008
meeting of the TN Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation as well as
photos click
here.
Bill Rickman
selects a site for his chestnut orchard in the outer basin of north
central Tennessee (click here
to see photos, Feb. 2008)
"On
a mission to save the chestnut tree"
Community College Times, Jan. 18, 2008
