WVU to host international symposium on American Chestnut - Business, Government Legal News from throughout WV

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. –Scholars from around the world will meet in West Virginia to discuss the health of the American Chestnut.

West Virginia University is partnering with the International Society of Horticultural Sciences, the American Chestnut Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture to hoses the fifth International Chestnut Symposium Sept. 4-8 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown.

WVU scholars have played a role in the scientific understanding of the chestnut and its associated problems for more than 30 years by bringing in scientists from around the world to discuss research. WVU hosted the first symposium in 1978 and again in 1992. The meeting in Shepherdstown will host 100 people from nine countries and more than 40 universities and agencies in the U.S. The program includes 67 oral and poster presentations.

The American chestnut was among the most valuable trees in eastern North American forests, spanning from southern Ontario to northern Florida. Chestnut blight, a disease caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, eliminated the American chestnut as a canopy

"Remarkably, in the more than 30 years since the first iteration of this project, there is real hope for a significant recovery of the American chestnut," said Mark Double, a research assistant in WVU's Division of Plant and Soil Sciences. "This ongoing multistate project has played a major role in effecting and documenting that recovery, while contributing outstanding basic and applied science to our knowledge base."

For information on the symposium, contact Double at 304-293-9277 or Mark.Double@mail.wvu.edu, or visit the symposium web site at http://chestnutsymposium.wvu.edu/.