Planting an American chestnut orchard at the Shenango Lake Campground

Description:

Description: Shenango Lake Rangers Rich Egger and Kyle Kraynak assisted with the completion of an American chestnut orchard at the Shenango Lake Campground (Mercer County, Pennsylvania), 23 July 2013. Staff and volunteers helped clear, prepare and plant the orchard area. An eight-foot fence was put in place to prevent deer from entering the area and damaging the trees. Volunteers used some of the most advanced back-crossed American and Asian chestnut material. The rare and valuable seeds were donated through the Handshake Partnership Agreement between the American Chestnut Foundation, Penn State University and Shenango Lake. The area will provide research data regarding the back-crossed, genetic resistance capabilities of the newly planted chestnuts. It will also provide interpretation and educational opportunities for the thousands of visitors at Shenango Lake. The American Chestnut Tree was once the most abundant and largest hardwood found in the Eastern United States until Asiatic canker blight decimated the entire native range by the mid 1950’s. The work and research being conducted at sites like these across the native range will hopefully one day produce a blight resistant American chestnut capable of filling its historic role as the “Redwood of the East Coast”. More information on this topic can be found at www.acf.org/. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Kyle Kraynak). Date: 23 July 2013, 10:37. Source: Building a fence to protect the future Uploaded by AlbertHerring. Author: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from USA.