( note historic first Brooklyn germination in over century)
Prospect Park has a number of maturing 30 feet tall specimens plan5ed by Bart
-----Original Message-----
From: bchezar@nyc.rr.com
To: Bart Chezar
Sent: Fri, Mar 6, 2015 10:30 am
Subject: Exciting American Chestnut News
3/6/15
Hi Everyone,
In my annual report to you on 1/30/15 I mentioned the six fertile nuts (seeds) we collected from the native, American chestnut trees in Prospect Park (planted in 2014). These seeds plus three I received from the NY TACF that originated from upstate NY, were placed in my refrigerator over the winter for cold storage. On 2/13/15 I removed the seeds from the refrigerator, planted them in pots and placed them on the sky-lit landing of my building.
Since none of the seeds had germinated I got anxious and partly dug up one of the seeds on 3/4/15. I noticed that there was some growth but it hadn’t come through the soil surface yet. Within the next two days three of the other pots had growth coming through the soil (all from Prospect Park). This is pretty exciting – see attachment.
I don’t think it is an exaggeration when I say these are probably the first New York City grown, native American Chestnut tree seedlings in 100 years. Pretty cool.
Let’s hope they continue to grow and we can plant them in Prospect Park next year.
Regards,
Bart
