The 2023 volunteer season got off to a great start in January with two separate events. On January 13th 4 volunteers came to University Park to help wash and sanitize 2,500 D40 pots. Doing dishes is usually not high on the desirable jobs list in my house so it was greatly appreciated to have volunteers travel several hours to wash a seemingly endless pile of pots.
The freshly washed pots were restacked and piled on tables when some of the same volunteers returned a week later to fill pots with media and plant the first chestnuts for 2023. 1,500 more D40s were added to the 2,500 to plant 4,000 chestnut seeds of different varieties. Over half of these are replicates of a trial being done at the Meadowview to compare resistance levels of a different material. These include crosses between some of the best trees in the Arboretum B3F3 orchard at University Park, crosses of B3F3 trees with D58 material, Large Surviving Americans, and Chinese, American, and F1 controls. Be on the lookout for volunteer announcements in May for tree plantings & June when we inoculate the seedlings.
Greenhouse planting day. Left to right: John Yoder, Gene Eddinger, Brian Kolar, Steve Delp, & Beverly Auvil
