3rd Annual
Indoor American Chestnut
Nurseries in Appalachian Schools
February 2011
Lake City Middle School, Anderson Co., TN
White Oak School, Campbell Co, TN
Clairfield School - Claiborne Co., TN
Visit our
American Chestnut pages to
learn more about the process
CLICK HERE TO learn
more about
the
American Chestnut
from Charlie Chestnut!
image from blog.jackburchett.com
These were proud, GIANT trees at one time!!
View the progress at each school
in photos below!
The U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM) and the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) are conducting research on whether American chestnut seeds should be planted directly on mine sites prepared by the Forestry Reclamation Approach (FRA) or whether they should be grown in a nursery and then transplanted to FRA sites as bare-root seedlings. Students at Lake City Middle School, White Oak School, and Clairfield School will expand the OSM/TACF study by growing chestnut seedlings in indoor nurseries and then evaluating the success of transplanting potted seedlings at mine sites prepared by the Forestry Reclamation Approach.
Image from www.cooperativeconservationamerica.org
Forester Vic Davis, with the Office
of
Surface Mining (OSM), instructs
students on the
best way to
plant nuts in the pots
Thanks to teachers
Sara Malicoat &
Ms Griffin
(Clairfield School),
Juanita Melton ( Lake
City
Middle School), and
Ashley Ogg (White Oak School).
Rather than merely planting American chestnut seeds in plastic pots, students are researching and experimenting to engineer a better chestnut pot. Experience shows that bigger pots allow better root development to reduce transplant shock. However, bigger pots are more expensive in terms of potting soil, nursery space, transportation, and labor to dig holes deep enough at FRA sites to accommodate the bigger potted seedlings. American chestnuts prefer loose, rocky ground. The loose part will make the digging easier, but the rocky part will present problems.
(A big THANK YOU to Greg Miller, owner of Empire Chestnut Company for providing us with the nuts for our indoor nurseries!!
If a seedling can be grown in a biodegradable container, then the seedling can be transplanted without being removed from the container. The theory is that transplant shock for seedlings grown in smaller biodegradable cylindrical containers will be comparable to seedlings grown in larger pots, but can be done at lower cost.
The step-by-step procedure used to make the paper pots can be found HERE!
Barry Thacker, PE, distributes nuts for students
to plant in their pots to grow for spring planting
