25 Comments

👍 I'm really new to all this, but are you familiar with Steve Hartman out of Bowling Green for American Chestnut seeds? I'm attempting to stratify ten because I'm cheap!

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I haven’t but I’ll look into it. Thanks for the heads up! 🙏

You’ll have to let me know if you have any luck.

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https://matermakerfilm.com/american-chestnut

If helpful.

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That’s super helpful. You’re the man Jesse!!

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Appreciate you man!

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👍🏼 for sure like the economics section. Maybe could even add a pic of the wood detail??

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Great recommendation. I’ll do that next time. 👍🏼

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👍

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👍

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Thank you for the input Heidi! I really appreciate it. 🙏

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You’re welcome! Is there any effort being made to restore Chestnut forests?

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That, I’m not sure about. I know they’ve got trial plantings out now that are >90% American genes but if I’m not mistaken, I believe they’re predominantly still in the testing phase at this point.

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Good to know. I’m currently studying for the Oregon Naturalist Program and we did a forestry module last week, so your article got me thinking.:) Thanks again!

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See now the west coast is a different story. If what I read is correct, I believe there are still some isolated populations out that way somewhere that haven’t been exposed to the blight yet.

If I’m not mistaken that’s part of the reason there are such strict regulations when shipping plants from the east coast to the west coast and vice versa.

A naturalist program you say? What does that entail exactly?

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Thank you, that makes a lot of sense in terms of shipping restrictions. Most States have a Naturalist Program. Approx 40, although they differ, depending on where you are. In Oregon, the program is part of Oregon State Univ Extenstion with the goal to build a base of “citizen scientists”, of State wide volunteers who understand the environment and can work toward protecting and sustaining it. This week we are studying Rangelands.

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👍🏼

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I appreciate the input my friend. Thank you! 🙏

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You’re welcome!

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UPDATE! I misspoke.

I mentioned there were 13 species of Castanea and I’ve been informed by a follower on Facebook of my mistake.

There are only 9 species of Castanea with several subspecies.

Here’s the full comment because I feel it offers some valuable intel and insight in addition to the newsletter:

“9 species of castanea, any others would be sub species. To store seed without mold issues collect and rinse seed in a mild bleach water solution, then dry off, and store directly in a low density polyethylene bag no sand or peat necessary (ziploc is such) then store at 33f in refrigerator until ready to plant then pull seed and it will pop a tadicle in a few days. It's fairly easy to get some dentata seeds if you know what groups to ask in. For wildlife chinquapin is much more blight responsive in areas effected by blight and an abundant producer when mature, and for chinese there are dozens of super great cultivars that can be grown without worry of tree death due to blight, and some hybrids cultivars as well, dunstan is not one of those unless of the original selection such as revival for nut quality or timber form trees, it is primarily chinese originally selected from poor performing chinese cultivar that is long been avoided for breeding purposes.”

Thanks for keeping me honest Ethan.

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👍

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Thanks for the input Mike. I appreciate it. 🙏

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