Pennsylvania
TACF owns a farm in Jefferson County, PA, portions of which
were mined and reclaimed as pasture/hay field in the 1980s. In 2002, TACF volunteers began establishing a breeding
orchard of one-sixteenth Chinese, fifteen-sixteenth American
chestnut seedlings on those mined lands (Figure 1).
Growth of trees at that orchard has been good (Figure 2), perhaps in
part because the trees were fertilized.
In later plantings, planting holes were augered and refilled to reduce compaction, and a small amount of forest soil was added to
provide inocula of mycorhizzae. It is currently believed that the orchard will be successful, and
TACF will be able to make selections and harvest nuts for the next generation of breeding. Other mined lands in Pennsylvania are
also being planted to similar orchards.
Western Kentucky and Indiana
In 2004, reclamation specialists of Peabody Energy Company
began direct seeding backcross nuts into mined land in Muhlenberg County in western
KY. Subsequently, they have
planted chestnuts on mined land in southern Indiana. In Kentucky, six plots were planted on
land reclaimed as pasture/hayfield, three ripped and three not
ripped. Better growth occurred on
the ripped land.
Additionally, one ripped plot was fertilized with horse manure, and
showed the best growth of the plots at the location, perhaps also because
brown, weathered sandstone was the substrate (Figure 3), in contrast to the other plots. Chestnut growth has been good on the unfertilized, ripped plots, but the trees are mildly
chlorotic, probably due to lack of nitrogen (Figure 4).