I live in blight region (NJ). We have American seedlings growing here for a few years now, but I don't have faith that inside the range they'll reach maturity.
Our mature American Chestnut tree is well established enough that it dies back some every few decades and recovers. This year I got 50 or so chestnuts out of it. I ate a few, they are great and never seem to get the weevil that the Chinese trees we have do (basically if I don't process the Chinese ones immediately after harvesting in a hot water bath, they will have a grub bore out of them in a week or so).
Been trying to find people outside blight region (somewhere like Michigan/Wisconsin) to plant the American ones so they have a shot. This tree is not a result of any of the ACF's crossbreeding, it's just a survivor that's over 100 years old.
I live in Nevada City, California. We have several productive chestnut trees growing around and I can't really tell if they're Chinese or American. They do not ever get anything growing in the nuts so maybe they're American. Otoh, the weevil might not be universal.
Our mature American Chestnut tree is well established enough that it dies back some every few decades and recovers. This year I got 50 or so chestnuts out of it. I ate a few, they are great and never seem to get the weevil that the Chinese trees we have do (basically if I don't process the Chinese ones immediately after harvesting in a hot water bath, they will have a grub bore out of them in a week or so).
Been trying to find people outside blight region (somewhere like Michigan/Wisconsin) to plant the American ones so they have a shot. This tree is not a result of any of the ACF's crossbreeding, it's just a survivor that's over 100 years old.