Seeds lying deep inside a sleepy hillside orchard could play a crucial role in the regeneration of the embattled American chestnut tree. Early Friday morning, a team of volunteers dropped about 1,0… ...

All over eastern North America right now, chestnut breeders are pollinating tree flowers. "So here is actually some flowers," Retired forester John Scrivani explains. They’re beautiful.

State chapters of the national foundation cross locally-adapted pure American chestnut trees with the Chinese chestnut, which is resistant to cryphonectria parasitica, known as chestnut blight.

Since 1969, more than 12,000 hybrid chestnuts with American and Chinese and Japanese genetics have been planted here as part of an effort to breed blight resistance into our native trees.

Since 1969, more than 12,000 hybrid chestnuts with American and Chinese and Japanese genetics have been planted here as part of an effort to breed blight resistance into our native trees.

It was traced to the introduction of Chinese chestnut trees into the U.S. around the turn of the 20th Century, he said. Unlike the American variety, the Chinese species is resistant to blight.

The mindless destroyer became known as the chestnut blight, and is believed to have entered this country around 1900 on infected Chinese chestnut trees delivered to a Long Island, N.Y., nursery.

The planting is part of an effort to develop a hybrid, crossbred with a Chinese species, capable of resisting the chestnut blight fungus.

They’re also being hybridized with blight resistant Chinese chestnut trees, and 1,000 of these enhanced trees were planted in New York City last month.