PRESS RELEASE

APPALACHIAN LAND & CONSERVATION SERVICES HARVESTS AND PLANTS WILD-GROWN NATIVE AMERICAN CHESTNUTS 

Appalachian Land & Conservation Services Co. president and CEO Josh First announced the successful harvest and subsequent planting of wild-grown chestnuts found on a previously unknown American Chestnut tree on land owned by Appalachian.	In the photo above, Josh First holds part of the American Chestnut harvest from a just-discovered wild tree.
The location of the tree is not being disclosed publicly but was formally reported to the American Chestnut Foundation (www.acf.org).  The tree has the imported chestnut blight but was sufficiently healthy to produce a bumper crop of the spiny chestnuts.  Seventeen nuts were harvested.
Planting the chestnuts in tree tubes and other protective shelters ensures a new crop of young, native, American Chestnut trees and the continuation of pure American Chestnut DNA.  While several different projects are under way to genetically alter the American Chestnut in order to provide resistance to the blight, there remains a constant search for wild American Chestnuts that survived the blight, in order to maintain genetic diversity for the future.
The chestnuts were planted on private land in Pine Creek Valley, also known as the “Pennsylvania Grand Canyon,” where the American Chestnut tree was a prominent component of the once-towering towering native forest there.
For further information contact Josh First, Appalachian Land & Conservation Services Co., LLC (717) 232-8335 or jfirst1044@aol.com.