4th Annual
Indoor American Chestnut
Nurseries in Appalachian Schools
February 2012
Lake City Middle
School, Anderson Co., TN
Norwood Middle School, Anderson 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!!
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 at a nursery and then transplanted to FRA sites as bare-root seedlings. Students at Lake City and Norwood Middle Schools in Anderson County 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.
Norwood students show off
their handmade chestnut pots
Foresters Chris Miller and Will Debord,
with the Office
of
Surface Mining (OSM),
instruct
students on the
Forestry Reclamation Approach.
Thanks to teachers Denise Houdeshell
(Lake City Middle School) and Sherry
Anderson (Norwood Middle 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
