They are easy to grow and grow fast. If you are in more blight-infested region, probably want to concentrate on growing hybrids and/or the chinese species. I've grown chestnuts from seed and they seem pretty easy to grow. I just stratify them in fridge and planted them in the spring and had good results, except for one year something attacked the germinating seeds. If you can't find anyone on here with seeds, can always see if one of the places that sell seed have them available, and other places like oikos tree crops sell various chestnut seedlings and sometimes sell seed, also.

If you are in or near the western half of the country Burnt Ridge nursery grows a major collection of chestnuts here in WA. See their web site.

The American Chestnut Foundation (www.acf.org) has chapters in 16 states. They have been working on developing blight resistant strains for at least 25 years.

In the interest of equal representation, I'll put forward the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation, a group that's working to develop/introduce a blight resistant chestnut, using ONLY American chestnut germplasm, with no infusion of Asian genetics.

Here is a link that might be useful: American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation

Are there any methods out there to slow down the blight on a tree?

YEah, look up "hypovirulence".

Where are you located? If you're in an area with arid summers (i.e. the American WEst), you would have much more luck. The fungus has a lot of trouble producing it's tiny "mushrooms" (conidiophores) without heat AND humidity. I have seen 150 year old PURE AMERICAN chestnuts in Siskiyou County, Ca. that are thriving, where humidity is never more than 30% on 98 degree days.

I have some seed from a naturalized grove that established itself on a clear cut near EUgene, Oregon I could send you, but it is most likely not pure American. I believe it might be EUropean/hybrid of some sort. Lawyer nursery sells seed of American Chestnut from a grove that survives in Michigan. Also, Cold STream Farm supposedly sells bare-root trees, they are located in Michigan.

If you really are interested in American Chestnut, I would suggest reading Susan Freinkel's book "American Chestnut - The life, death and rebirth of a perfect tree". Amazing how the Forest Service helped knock this species closer to the edge of oblivion by declaring a policy of cutting ALL chestnut trees, living and dead. I believe that they figured any trees that weren't dead soon would be, so best to salvage the timber. They probably eradicated many trees that had some blight-resistant genes. Aside from working for the lumber companies and introducing exotic diseases (i.e. white pine blister rust) into the country, I guess they do SOME good once in a while...(?)

Reseeding chestnuts in local plantings typically C. sativa.

They probably eradicated many trees that had some blight-resistant genes. Aside from working for the lumber companies and introducing exotic diseases (i.e. white pine blister rust) into the country, I guess they do SOME good once in a while...(?)

Huh. Kinda like what we are doing with EAB back there. Humans, sadly, don't learn very well, really.

Nonetheless, growing them back east is still problematic, and there are rare isolated pockets where a couple are growing, but that's it. As stated above, there are more out west. Maybe 20-25 years we can start either inoculating the stump sprouts and/or reintroducing resistant vars. Hopefully they will be able to grow in the likely rapidly changing ecosystems then.

Dan

On a side note of evolveing resistance, Chestnut Blight also largely wiped out the Ozark Chinquapin Castanea ozarkensis. There are a few scattered surviving individuals with varying amounts of resistance. Some are trying to revive this species as well (see link). I know people who remember this tree, and speak highly of the quality of their nuts, and how they looked forward to harvesting them.

Arktrees

Here is a link that might be useful: Ozark Chinquapin