How do I become an ACCF member and get seednuts?

We are no longer distributing American chestnut seedlings, and 

Any American chestnut seed requests received after November 14, 2009, will not be filled this year, but placed at the top of the new chestnut seed data base for distribution  in mid-October, 2010.
To take part in the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation nut distribution,  you fill out and sign a Cooperating Grower Agreement Form  and send with a check made out to ACCF for your annual contribution of $20.   You can request a Grower Agreement Form via e-mail from allaccf@gmail.com . Grower orders are submitted on the Grower Agreement Form.   Orders from established growers  must be accompanied by the annual report of your surviving American  chestnuts (unless we already have your report on file).  Mail to:  ACCF,  Forest  Service Road 708, Newport, VA 24128 or report via the web at this link Online Report Form.  

To insure that American chestnut groves, established with our help, accurately reflect our breeding program, we have changed the Grower Agreement form.  To order or request chestnuts or scions, please fill out and return the new form .  If  you have already reported via our Web site, please indicate this on the Report form.  The $20 donation to ACCF research is unaffected by inflation.

ACCF chestnuts are all-Americans from open pollination in several Virginia and West Virginia plantings.  The mother trees are blight resistant, but this characteristic may be inherited by perhaps 10% of their offspring.  More generations of breeding are necessary to produce American chestnuts with blight resistance that is regularly inheritable. Meanwhile, from the first very small sample of F2 progeny of Ruth and Miles which are over 1.5 inches dbh and have their first blight cankers, it appears that in the second generation we may expect at least 25% in this breeding line to inherit blight resistance.  In the past few years, the maturing of many grafts of original blight survivors, as well as selected F1 and F2 progeny, and regular cutting of those chestnuts in our breeding plots which do not pass durable blight resistance tests has greatly improved the quantity of nuts with improved blight-resistance expectations which we can distribute to our growers.  When ACCF stock is planted within the area infested by blight, natural selection will reveal the resistant individuals; scions from these can then be grafted into the new shoots on chestnuts killed by blight. Cooperators can report via the Online Report Form OR  copy/paste from this Email Report Template and send your report via e-mail to allaccf@gmail.com . We rely on the reports of cooperating growers to learn the numbers of ACCF chestnuts which have inherited blight resistance.

If you wish to start an American chestnut revival project, visit the Chestnut Grove Academy webrary and check out the Habitat page first, to help you locate an appropriate site; next visit the other pages to learn about the disease and the work necessary to establish or reclaim an American chestnut grove.  If you find that your land is suitable, it is a good idea to prepare your planting site in the winter or spring, for planting the following fall.  If you do not find on these pages the information you need to get started, please e-mail Lucille (below) with your question(s).     

It is never too early to establish defenses to keep deer out of your plantings:  here in Virginia, where the deer herd is out of control, we must protect all chestnut seedlings and grafts with staked weld wire cages, 5 feet tall and at least 2.3 feet in diameter, decorated with bright flagging to help deter collisions.

 

Last updated 11/07/2010

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