American chestnut trees were once an important part of the Nation’s eastern forests, making up one out of four trees in many places. Known as the “Redwood of the East,” their nuts were important food for people and wildlife, and their timber was ideal for furniture and other products. Around 1900, a foreign fungus called chestnut blight swept through eastern forests, and by the 1950s, more than four billion American chestnut trees were gone.

Occasionally, someone found a live tree. A persistent few would not give up on the chestnut. Around 1904, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station began programs to develop a blight-resistant strain. Efforts failed, and the USDA discontinued their program in 1960. Nobody knew then that some of their strains would indeed become important parts of the modern breeding program. 

Armed with a new understanding of genetics, scientists and supporters renewed their efforts in the 1980s, which saw the formation of a non-profit organization called the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). The organization established research farms with several cooperators.

The USDA Forest Service State and Private Forestry, National Forest System, Agriculture Research Service, Connecticut Extension, and several others have been working with TACF to restore chestnut trees to the landscape. The breeding program crosses Chinese chestnuts, naturally resistant to the blight, with their American cousin. The program has produced blight resistant trees with 98 percent American genes. TACF expects the first seeds to be ready for test planting by 2006, and trees with the characteristics needed to survive in their former range a few years after that. 

To assure genetic diversity in the restored population, several resistant strains will be needed. During the last eight years the USDA Forest Service has been locating new trees in the wild to add to the breeding population. The USDA Forest Service Research station has identified genetic markers that indicate resistance, which will speed up the breeding program.