Planting Chestnuts at Lark Nursery, Rosemont, NJ May 6, 2006

As part of our ongoing effort to learn as much about Chinese resistance as possible, our Chapter undertook the planting of over 600 Chinese chestnuts. We only had about 1 week to plan the planting, but much of the area was already prepared, thanks to Lou and Ann Cyktor of Lark Nursery. Lou gave us three new rows in which to plant 215 individuals from each of three different families.

Honestly, the planting was one of the most smoothest plantings of which I've ever been a part. We started planting at 10am and were done by 2pm!! And that's a testament to the hard work that everybody put in. I cannot think everyone enough for showing up on such short notice and really coming through. We had a great turnout, and I really appreciate everyone's help on that, especially because it was so last minute. We had help of both new and seasoned volunteers from PA-TACF, from the Lou and Ann Cyktor, owners of Lark Nursery, as well as representatives of a local grade school.

During the Smith Farm Arbor Day event (on April 28, 2006), I met an enthusiastic teacher from New Jersey named Darlene Yanoff. She works with Franklin Township school in Quakertown, NJ. She put out the word to her students and they showed up with hammers in hand and great enthusiasm for the project.

Also of note, one of our members, Susan Charkes, wrote a very nice article that recently ran in the Bucks County Herald on our first planting at Lark Nursery. We completed that planting on April 20, 2006 with the help of students from the Solebury School. Thanks again go out to all those who helped us with the establishment of that first planting as well!

In about three years, we'll need to come back to the site and inoculate the trees to observe potential differences in resistance within and among the three progeny sets. It will be a fun test to follow!

We started the day with three beautifully tilled rows. The soil was easy to work and the stakes drove right into the ground.	After only about 0.5 hour, the setup of the first row was complete.	And we started work on the second row.
While part of the crew completed the layout of all three rows, driving stakes and placing tubes at each planting site, teams started to plant the nuts. Here, Thad prepares the planting site with a spade.	After the sites were prepared, Tom worked to carefully plant the seed in their new homes. Tom, Ethan, Paul, and Thad were on the Row Three crew.	In Row 2, Bob worked with Darlene and other representatives from Franklin Township schools.
Here, the three rows have been finished in their layout, the seed have been planted, and the labels were being applied to each tree.	The kids from Franklin Township Schools worked hard on Row 1.	Here is a finished planting location: stakes, planted, tubed, numbered, and irrigated.
Several pairs of these "cannibalistic" chestnuts were found among the nuts. Of the thousands of nuts I've helped plant, I'd never seen this.	I want to thank Ron Farr of the Wanaque Reservoir for the term cannibilism. He also noted that this might be called natural grafting. We planted these -- can't see wait to see what pops up!