Kentucky is used to being ranked near the bottom for nearly everything, they've embraced being competitively bad.

That is amazing! I've yet to see an unmodified American Chestnut in person because of their *incredible* rarity and find myself jealous! The advice provided you entirely makes sense. The value of the wood probably plays a major role in why they keep the specific locations secret while trying to bring back the population. A single railroad tie of American Chestnut that is in great condition can go for tens of thousands of dollars. The "big" thing about American Chestnut? It stays in great condition for a really, really long time.

I completely understand the concerns around space and area efficiency in farming (and gardening!!) and it's a conversation that should definitely continue as we strive to achieve our best! As far as dwarf chestnuts go, I would be curious to investigate that as well. We will definitely make it a point to pick the brains of the smart people, as we're just simple farmers with the land to provide some opportunity!

It's a safety and security concern. More centered around protecting the investments in tech, methodology, specific locations, and information in general. It isn't a hypercompetitive, fast growing tree or anything like that. You'd be genuinely surprised at how sensitive they can be to fertilizing.

Edited to note that even maintaining a tract they'll not disclose the specific location to us of many operations, only general areas. There are some secrets required to keep everything safe!

I honestly don't know about pruning and am not familiar with dwarf chestnuts. It's something I can ask about the next time we've team on-site, which should be late April-ish. We've simply planted and let grow in our operation with space constraints being of no concern. It's seasonal interaction and largely passive at this point in time.

For what it's worth, when our contract was established there were an estimated 2900-3200 American Chestnut trees. We are told our contract was the largest private one at the time, with an ~1100 tree contract in a Northern US/CAN region being the closest comparable- clearly dwarfing our own.

The pictured trees have since been deemed "obsolete", as they were a run sharing the genetics of a Japanese hardwood, but we still expect 30-40% to survive into maturity and continue to study, monitor, and maintain.

If I understood things correctly, borrowed traits from wheat and strawberries have yielded the outcomes we've all been hoping for.

It's an application process that one can qualify for after maintaining state-level conservation contracts for a set amount of time, but it's entirely possible this has changed since our own contracts were established.

We keep contracts in the state of Kentucky for native game grasses and some projects built around the reintroduction of elk and black bear. Both our Fish & Wildlife and Forestry officers brought the project to our attention and served as our recommendations for entry into the program.

Cool article! We maintain a large private American Chestnut nursery, housing just under 300 genetically altered trees. We've been involved for about a decade and it's been pretty cool observing the advancements and having a small role.

Have some pics!

https://imgur.com/a/ti4PxL1

Gonna ride my bike to Minute Mart and grab my dad a pack of smokes, back in a bit!