Virtual Program: "Restoring the American Chestnut Tree"
01/13/2021, 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Online Presentation map
Description:
The Wolf River Restoration Series continues with the 16th Annual Tree Planting and our featured speakers launching the event. Drs. Hill Craddock and Rob Laport will join us to discuss the American Chestnut Tree (Castanea dentata), once a dominant tree species in the forests of eastern North America, and the efforts of The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). to restore it. Dr. James Hill Craddock is the UC Foundation Davenport Professor in Biology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science. Dr. Rob Laport is assistant professor with the Rhodes College Department of Biology.
More than a century ago, nearly four billion American chestnut trees were growing in the eastern U.S. They were among the largest, tallest, and fastest-growing trees. The wood was rot-resistant, straight-grained, and suitable for furniture, fencing, and building. The nuts fed billions of wildlife, people and their livestock. It was almost a perfect tree, that is, until a blight fungus killed it more than a century ago. The chestnut blight has been called the greatest ecological disaster to strike the world’s forests in all of history.
Join us to learn about this remarkable tree and the efforts to find survivors and to restore it to our landscapes. Pre-registration is required to receive an invitation to this free event; please register below!