February 12, 2011 New England Regional Chestnut Restoration Workshop

Saturday, February 12, 2011

9:30 am to 4:00 pm

Portsmouth, NH

Urban Forestry Center

Registration is free, but be sure to let the coordinator of this meeting know that you’ll be coming so that necessary arrangements may be made and also so that updated logistical information may be sent to you.

 

Contact:

Kendra Gurney
The American Chestnut Foundation
New England Regional Science Coordinator
USFS Northern Research Station
705 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
Tel: 802.951.6771
Cell: 802.999.8706
Kendra@acf.org or kgurney@uvm.edu

Preliminary Agenda

9:30am    Registration

10:00am  Meeting

12:30pm  Lunch

Lunch available for $12 or bring your own
Lunch Menu – from Me and Ollie’s Catering

1:00pm    Meeting

4:00pm    Adjourn

 

October 23, 2010 Annual Meeting, Member Voting, and By-Laws Amendment

Annual Meeting

Maine Chapter

The American Chestnut Foundation

Oct. 23, 2010

Orono, Maine

Items to be Voted Upon:

Directors with terms expiring Oct 2010 and to be re-elected for a three year term

Expiring  October 2013.

Joseph Conwill (officer)

Henry Leigh

Jay Lindsey

New Directors:

Nicholas Rockwell, Bancroft, ME

Larry Totten, W. Bath, ME

Officers:

Glen Rea, President

Eric Evans, VP

Charlie Hudson, Secretary

Joseph Conwill, Treasurer

 

Change in By-Laws concerning Quorum.

The current By-Laws, Article II, Section 6 states:  “A quorum shall consist of at least twenty-five (25) voting members or 20% of the entire voting membership for any special or Annual Meeting.  A quorum is necessary to conduct business.  Dues paying organizations and entities shall have one vote.”

The Board of Directors, meeting at the quarterly meeting in September 2010, voted unanimously that this section be amended to read “A quorum shall consist of at least 10% of the entire voting membership for any special or Annual Meeting.  A quorum is necessary to conduct business.  Dues paying organizations and entities shall have one vote.”

Reasons for change:   We have had great difficulty in obtaining a quorum at the annual meeting because the attendance has usually been in the 15-20 range of voting members.  We now have 130 members and with a 20% voting membership we would need at least 25 voting members present.

The Board of Directors recommends a “Yes” vote for this proposed change

 

President’s Message About October 23, 2010 Annual Meeting

Maine Chapter

The American Chestnut Foundation

231 Buck St.

Bangor, ME 04401

207-945-6945

October 11, 2010

Dear members and friends,

The Board of Directors has voted to hold the Annual Meeting of our chapter on Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at the Orono Senior Citizens Center, 1 Birch St., Orono, ME.  The meeting will start at 9:00 am and we hope you will be able to attend.

There are several items to be voted upon and we urge you to consider them carefully.  You will notice that under the Board of Directors the name of Welles Thurber is not present. His resignation was accepted at the meeting of the Board of Directors in Sept. 2010.  Welles was one of the co-founders of this organization and has been a tremendous asset to the Maine Chapter over the years.  We thank him for his many, many contributions and he has taught so many people about pollination, planting, harvesting and other activities associated with growing chestnuts.  He has said that he will be around to help out where ever he can, but he doesn’t like attending meetings and writing reports. We thank him for all that he has done and will continue to do to help restore the American chestnut to the forests of Maine.

Our chapter has made tremendous progress in growing B3-F1 hybrids in our orchards and we began our first inoculations 2007.  We will visit two of our orchards in Veazie and Bradley, plus look at the two B3-F3 trees “Restoration” cultivars, which are two years old, and growing at Leonard’s Mills.  On Mon., Oct 18, during the evening local news on NBC, “Bill Green’s Maine” will showcase our work in this area.  Watch for the promos on that date.

Next year we will be clearing some land to start our first seed orchards. Eric Evans will be presenting some information during the morning session about what is involved and what we should be looking for over the next few years. One encouraging thing is that we are about 8 – 9 years from having the first B3-F3 seeds from Maine orchards.  We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but there is a tremendous amount of work yet to be done.

We hope you can make it to the Annual Meeting – to learn and to see old friends and to make new ones.

Sincerely,

Glen Rea

President

 

Agenda for the Maine Chapter’s Annual Meeting, October 23, 2010

Maine Chapter

The American Chestnut Foundation

Agenda

Annual Meeting of Chapter

October 23, 2010

Orono Senior Citizens Center

1 Birch St.

Orono, Maine 04473

 

1. Meet and Greet.  9:00 – 9:30 am
2. Business Meeting  9:30 – 10:15
   1. Call to order
   2. Vote on By-Law change for Quorum (see attached sheet)
   3. Secretary’s report – Minutes of last annual meeting Oct. 17, 2009
   4. Treasurer’s Report
   5. Report of Nominating Committee
   6. Election of Directors
   7. Election of Officers
   8. Election of representative to national Board of TACF
   9. Committee Reports:  Science, Growers, Publicity Education Membership, Finance
   10. Old Business

a.     Distribution of B3-F3 seedlings now being held at Eric Evans’ house

b.     Other

1. 1. New Business
   2. Adjourn Business Meeting
   3. Break 10:15 – 10:30
   4. Presentations

a. Eric Evans   “Seed Orchards”  10:30 – 11:30

b. Glen Rea – “Restoration Branches”

O.  Adjourn for lunch  12:00.  On your own for lunch 12:00 – 1:00

P.   Tours of Veazie Orchard, Orchard at Penobscot Experimental Forest, and

the two B3-F3 trees planted at Leonard’s Mills and are in their 2^nd year.

Q.  Adjourn Annual Meeting.

 

 

Ann Rea’s Leonard’s Mills Photos

Here are the best of the photos I took at the ceremony at the Maine Forest and Logging Museum   (also known as Leonard’s Mills) planting May 22 of Maine’s first B3-F3 American chestnut trees.  The museum is located in Bradley, Maine, near Bangor.

One picture shows the new fishway built by the Atlantic Salmon Federation and its allies, as alewives are being released into the fishway by Bucky Owen and Andy Goode of ASF.

The second one shows the first tree planting done by (left to right) Bucky Owen, former Commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and former Department Chair of Wildlife at University of Maine at Orono; Alan Kimball, Manager of University Forests and Associate Professor of Forestry at the University of Maine, Orono; Glen Rea, Chairman of the Board of TACF and Chairman of the TACF Maine Chapter; and Bob Frank, retired U.S. Forest Service Manager of the Penobscot Experimental Forest. What a lot of talent and experience! Bucky and Glen are currently members of the Maine Chapter of TACF, and Bob is a former member.  Glen and Bob are both members of the board of the Maine Forest and Logging Museum. The trees were donated by long-time TACF member Gerold Thumm, who was unable to attend.

This was indeed a good day for Maine’s environment.

Ann Rea
Maine Chapter, TACF Board Member

 

ME-TACF President’s Thanks and Update

Dear Chestnutters,
I also want to thank all of you for your good work on Saturday.  Kendra, Eric and Jay did an excellent job of preparing for the day and in spite of the heat, we finished the inoculations in good time.  Five acres of forest land have been selected at the Penobscot Experimental Forest (PEF) in Bradley and the seeds from these trees (after culling) will be planted in the Austin Jones Seed Orchard at PEF.  We will also be selecting 5 acres farther south in Maine for the second five acre orchard for the Clapper line.  For the Graves line we will also have two five acre orchards which will remain separate from the Clapper line.

I love the pictures of the watermelon eaters. I have copied Bryan Burhans (Pres. & CEO) and Meghan Jordan in on this message and I think they will enjoy seeing all of us Mainers eating watermelon instead of lobster.

The Restoration (B3-F3) chestnut trees that were transplanted at Leonard’s Mills on May 22 are doing fine and putting out new growth.  Now to get them through their first Maine winter. Pictures to follow.

Thanks again,
Glen Rea
Chairman, Board of Directors
President, Maine Chapter
The American Chestnut Foundation

 

Highmoor Innoculation Crew photos

 

Highmoor Innoculation Update

Hi Chestnut Inoculators,

A big thanks to you all for the good job inoculating chestnut trees at Highmoor yesterday!

The next step in the process will be Kendra and I will evaluate the cankers in October then again next June. We will select  2-3 trees in each of the 14 breeding lines that have the smallest cankers and good American characteristics, and rogue out the rest. Over the following several years we will collect seeds from those “keepers”, to plant in new seed orchards. After inoculating, selecting, and roguing, the seed orchards should be producing highly-blight-resistant chestnuts.

Here are some of the photos I took.

Eric Evans

Breeding Coordinator, Vice President

Maine Chapter, The American Chestnut Foundation

236-9635    706-6913

belevans@roadrunner.com

www.me-acf.org

 

Chestnut Pollination Summer 2010

Hi Directors and other chestnut hunters,

As I told some of you at Highmoor last weekend, chestnut blooming could be a couple weeks earlier than usual this year, based on Kendra’s report of flower development she observed in NH and MA. So we need to start now to plan our pollination logistics. The first step is to collect and share our ideas about potential new mother trees, with the following information:

town, landowner name & contact info, your description of the tree’s flowering and access, and your knowledge of proximity of other chestnuts that have or could pollinate it naturally, ie. the need to pre-bag.

The next step is to observe the development of flowering, especially the number, accessibility, and the current stage of development of female flowers. Use the pictures at following link to guide your evaluation http://www.acffarms.org/pollination/

and review the following pollination instructions http://www.masschestnut.org/pollinationManual.php

After we all share this information, we can decide which of these trees we want to line up for pollination this year. The other part of this is:  HOW MANY trees will we want to pollinate, and how many lines will we want to plant next spring. This depends on whether any more of our current BC3 lines have declined to such small numbers (less than 15) that we can no longer count them as a useful part of our breeding program.

So I need the following information from all orchard managers ASAP: either a complete inventory of heights &/or stem diameters (especially if you didn’t send me one in 2009) OR confirmation that all the trees that were thriving last year are still thriving.

I suspect that we will want to make 3-4 new lines, so we should aim to pollinate about 6 new mother trees.

Eric Evans

Breeding Coordinator, Vice President

Maine Chapter, The American Chestnut Foundation

207-236-9635     207-706-6913

www.me-acf.org   www.acf.org

 

First B3-F3 Hybrid Chestnuts in Maine

Directors, officers and friends,
On Sat., May 22, we had a beautiful day and a wonderful outing as we planted the first B3-F3 hybrid chestnut trees in Maine.  The Bangor Daily News covered the event well and it is reported in today’s (24th) paper on the front page.  I want to thank Bucky Owen, Bob Frank, and Alan Kimball for assisting in the actual planting and also board member Ann Rea for assisting at the event.  We also received TV coverage from channel 2 and radio coverage from Maine Public Broadcasting (MPBN) on their “Maine Things Considered” program on Fri. evening.
Thanks again to all for their assistance.

Glen Rea
Chairman, Board of Directors
President, Maine Chapter
The American Chestnut Foundation