Friday, January 27, 2012
The three-decades-old initiative to restore American chestnut trees back into forests in the eastern United States has entered a new phase, according to an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. The primary focus of the project has transitioned from cross-breeding to testing and reintroduction into forests, noted Sara Fitzsimmons, northcentral region science coordinator for the American Chestnut Foundation and a research support technologist in Penn State's School of Forest Resources. It may take centuries until American chestnut again grows wild across its original range -- from Maine to Georgia and west to Indiana and Michigan, she said. Still, Fitzsimmons envisions a day when the huge trees again will dominate the forests of Pennsylvania and other states. (more)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Aaron Stottlemyer, instructor of forestry at Penn State DuBois, has joined a group of experts who are leading the charge to restore the American chestnut to eastern U.S. forests (a fungus known as chestnut blight wiped out chestnut populations in the early 1900s). He was invited to join The American Chestnut Foundation's (TACF) Restoration and Ecology Track and recently met with the group at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. They discussed plans for reintroducing the tree to forests, since seeds of blight-resistant hybrid chestnut trees will be available soon. (more)
Monday, April 06, 2009
Wildlife students at Penn State DuBois are helping to establish a forest where there was once just barren land devastated by strip mining. Students are now planting trees on a 3.5-acre portion of reclaimed strip mine near Coal Glenn, Jefferson County. Two core goals of this study are to find out what methods of planting will allow trees to prosper at reclaimed mine sites, and to try growing American chestnut trees at such sites. Successful growth could mean a rebirth of the chestnut, a species virtually wiped from the face of the earth by an invasive fungus in the early 20th century. (more)
