[VeritatisSplendor]

I want chestnuts back. My great-grandfather was a housebuilder and carpenter and his favorite wood was chestnut. In the sixties and seventies he still had access to “wormy chestnut” - the trees were dead and tunnelled a bit by wood borers but they did not rot.

I keep waiting and hoping for them to release nuts or tissue-culture saplings - I would plant them in a minute.

Mrs VS

[Daffynition]

I know what you mean and I'm heartened that you care about such things. I've been in old homes where the floor planks are made of wide chestnut boards and they feel like they are made of iron.

The American Chestnut Foundation in Bennington VT expects to have limited quantities of a highly blight-resistant backcross chestnuts available for initial testing and research (though not available to the general public). Seeds are expected to be available for wider distribution in the following 5 to 15 years.

Currently, TACF members are able to purchase PURE, not resistant, and guaranteed to blight (see Q&A #2) American chestnut seeds and seedlings.

Once there were 4 billion trees. Then came the blight...