Rare chestnut trees to spread again near James River

A wooded field near the James River in southwest Amherst County has 560 rare chestnut saplings in its soil with many hopes planted with them.

If they reach full maturity, the trees would embody the comeback of the once-flourishing American chestnut that a century ago nearly faced extermination because of a deadly fungus infestation known as chestnut blight.

About 40 people gathered Wednesday at the site near Virginia 130 to plant the test chestnuts and nearly 100 other buffer trees. The site is privately owned by Georgia-Pacific, which operates a containerboard mill on the other side of the James in Big Island.

GP and the American Chestnut Foundation partnered to reintroduce the chestnut to its native habitat. Until the early 20th century chestnuts grew in more than 2 million acres of woodlands from Maine to Florida.

That’s a sight GP and the foundation wants to see again.

“This is the first of this kind of planting in Virginia,” said Katy McCune, the foundation’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Science Coordinator. “This is a big step. If this is successful, this will be the first grouping of chestnuts that could potentially reforest Virginia.”

The saplings are products of 25 years of genetic crossing with the Chinese chestnut. They are 94 percent American chestnut, McCune said, but retain blight resistance of the Chinese chestnut. The trees were grouped by different genetic variations; part of the future monitoring over the next two decades will include seeing if any particular genetic mix is more successful than others.

“We expect to start being able to able to see results five to 10 years from now,” McCune said. “It’s going to take many, many years to see the final results. This is a long-term project.”

GP and the foundation have spent a year planning the site. Brush was removed and a fence was put up around the trees to keep deer out.

McCune described the wooded location as a perfect location for the “controlled experiment.”

“Chestnuts do best on higher, drier sites,” said John Scrivani, Virginia chapter president of the foundation. “It’s a very tightly controlled scientific test. That’s why every tree is tagged and placed in a certain spot.”

The Big Island mill has made a 20-year commitment to provide and manage the plot, which allows the foundation to monitor the trees.

Bryan Burhans, president and CEO of the foundation, said a scientist and volunteers of the Virginia chapter would monitor the site in the future.

“As an organization, we can’t do it alone,” he said of volunteers and partners. “There’s no financial incentive for Georgia-Pacific to do this, except that they are committed to our natural resources. The work they put into this site is tremendous.”

Bedford County Supervisor Steve Arrington, who represents the Big Island area, attended the planting Wednesday and said the project represents “a great management of our natural resources” that has historical significance.

Eldon Brammer, the mill’s vice president, said the project aligns with the company’s commitment to environmental stewardship.

“It’s taken rare persistence, perseverance to get to this point,” Brammer said of the restoration. “We at Georgia-Pacific feel fortunate to be a part of it.”