Sandvik Materials Technology has celebrated a double anniversary by holding an American chestnut tree planting ceremony at its facilities in Pennsylvania.
In commemoration of these significant anniversaries, with direct support from the PA/NJ Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, a ceremonial planting of three of the most advanced, backcrossed, American chestnut restoration trees in existence was held.
More than a century ago, nearly four billion American chestnut trees were growing in the forests of the eastern U.S. Once as common as hemlock or oak, chestnuts were among the largest, tallest, and fastest-growing trees in the forest. The wood was rot-resistant, straight-grained, and suitable for furniture, fencing, and building. The nuts fed wildlife, people and their livestock.
American chestnut is considered functionally extinct because the blight fungus does not kill the tree’s root system underground. The American chestnut survives by sending up stump sprouts that grow in logged or otherwise disturbed sites, but these sprouts succumb to the blight and die back to the ground before reaching the forest canopy or reproducing.
