Residents driving down John Owings Road in Westminster have wondered whether a new cemetery has sprung up at Hashawha Environmental Center.
But those straight lines of white tubes aren?t grave sites. They?re the coverings for 250 chestnut tree samplings planted in a new grove designed to bring the “king of the forest” back from the brink of extinction.
“We?ll infect the trees with blight, and the seeds from those that are most resistant will be put back into the forest,” said Brad Rogers, Carroll County?s bureau chief for recreation and parks.
Blight, a fungus that was accidentally imported from Asia in the late 19th century, has nearly wiped the American chestnut tree from existence, said Meghan Jordan, director of communications for The American Chestnut Foundation.
Four billion American chestnut trees once towered over forests from Maine to Georgia and across the Ohio River valley, but the species has dwindled to several hundred nationwide.
The decline hurt a booming chestnut timber industry and threatened local forest wildlife, which came to rely on the high-protein chestnut for survival.
Today, half-dead chestnut trees are found throughout Maryland.
Environmentalists hope that local breeding groves like Hashawha?s one-acre plot will revive these giant trees by producing a hybrid American-Chinese chestnut tree that will retain the American species? rot-resistant wood while mixing in the Chinese variety?s resistance to blight.
The public won?t be able to get blight-resistant trees for some time because it will take a decade for growers to find the perfect blends and reintroduce them into the forest.
The seedlings at Hashawha were planted in Apriland are now 4 to 8 inches tall.
Carroll schools bought the grove?s fence and fertilizer, and The American Chestnut Foundation donated the seeds.
“We?re returning a giant forest community tree back to where it belongs,” Rogers said.
