Last Update: 09/12/2022

  • Home
  • VENDORS WELCOME!
  • Mr. & Mrs. Chestnut
  • Photo Gallery
  • Who's Who
  • Contact Us
  • TACF-WV News
  • Support
  • Cooking with Chestnuts
  • Archives
  • Links
    • American Chestnut (TACF)
    • Rowlesburg Site
    • RRC
    • Rowlesburg Guide
    • Mainstay Lodging
    • River House Lodge
    • Camp Dawson Lodging
  • More
    • Home
    • VENDORS WELCOME!
    • Mr. & Mrs. Chestnut
    • Photo Gallery
    • Who's Who
    • Contact Us
    • TACF-WV News
    • Support
    • Cooking with Chestnuts
    • Archives
    • Links
      • American Chestnut (TACF)
      • Rowlesburg Site
      • RRC
      • Rowlesburg Guide
      • Mainstay Lodging
      • River House Lodge
      • Camp Dawson Lodging
  • Home
  • VENDORS WELCOME!
  • Mr. & Mrs. Chestnut
  • Photo Gallery
  • Who's Who
  • Contact Us
  • TACF-WV News
  • Support
  • Cooking with Chestnuts
  • Archives
  • Links
    • American Chestnut (TACF)
    • Rowlesburg Site
    • RRC
    • Rowlesburg Guide
    • Mainstay Lodging
    • River House Lodge
    • Camp Dawson Lodging

Welcome to the West Virginia Chestnut Festival

Welcome to the West Virginia Chestnut FestivalWelcome to the West Virginia Chestnut FestivalWelcome to the West Virginia Chestnut Festival

Honoring the Great American Chestnut Tree.

Honoring the Great American Chestnut Tree. Honoring the Great American Chestnut Tree. Honoring the Great American Chestnut Tree.

2016 - Fred Hebard & Dayle Zanzinger

Additional Information

Dr. Frederick Hebard

Dr. Dayle Zanzinger


The American Chestnut Foundation  (TACF) would not be where it is today without the perseverance of Dr.  Frederick V. Hebard, its longest tenured employee. Fred has spent most  of his adult life working with chestnuts.  He got hooked on the tree when he was working on a farm while an  undergraduate at Columbia University. He was helping round up stray  heifers when he came across an old chestnut sprout. The farmer told him  about the blight and all the trees that had died. Something  about the story captivated Fred. "I don't understand the psychology  very well, but it gives me a mission."  In 1989, after getting a M.S.  degree in botany and a Ph.D. in plant pathology, Fred heard that the  recently established American Chestnut Foundation  was looking for someone to manage its farm. He leaped at the chance,  though the job meant moving his wife and two small children to the  hamlet of Meadowview. His first year on the job, he planted the open  pasture behind the farmhouse with 250 young Chinese  and hybrid trees. Since then it's been a long, slow process: planning  crosses, planting nuts, collecting pollen, pollinating trees, harvesting  nuts, testing young hybrids for resistance and culling inferior  specimens.

It wasn't until the mid-1990s that  Fred got confirmation that the backcross plan developed by Dr. Charles  Burham could even work. He inoculated a group of second-generation  hybrids with the blight fungus and then  methodically tracked how well each tree coped. Crawling along the  ground between the long rows of trees, ruler in hand, he measured the  cankers on each tree and compared them to those on the Chinese trees.  Gradually he realized that some of the hybrids were  showing a marked resistance to the blight. "It looked like the Burnham  hypothesis had at least passed its first test," he says, adding with  characteristic understatement, "I was pretty pleased about that."

The results also underscored the  intimidatingly long odds of creating a fully blight-resistant tree. By  tracking how many of those hybrids held up against the blight, Fred was  able to confirm that, as suspected,  only two or three main genes control resistance. This means that after  all the necessary crosses and backcrosses, only a fraction of the trees  he produces will have the level of resistance needed to survive in  forests riddled with blight.

After decades of dedication to the  cause of restoring American chestnut into eastern forests, Dr. Hebard  retired in the summer of 2015 and assumed the title of Chief Scientist  Emeritus. This backcross-breeding  process was carefully conducted for nearly three decades under Fred’s  leadership and watchful eye, primarily on TACF’s Glenn C. Price Research  Lab and Farms in Meadowview, Virginia.  His contributions to the  restoration of this species include countless hours  of research and the planting of over 130,000 chestnuts on the farms.  His tenacity and commitment to this endeavor has resulted in the  development of populations of trees that average 15/16 American chestnut  and are our most advanced, blight-resistant generation  to date. 

Fred was an intellectual advisor for Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling novel, Prodigal Summer.  This book helped to romanticize and propel the nature of the Appalachian mountains and culture.  


Dr. Dayle Zanzinger is a nurse  practitioner specialist in Marion, VA in family medicine.  Dayle  graduated with honors from the University of Virginia School of medicine  in 1999.  Having more than 17 years of diverse  experience, especially in nurse practitioner, Dayle affiliates with  many hospitals including Smyth County Community Hospital, Johnston  Memorial Hospital, Wellmont Health Systems.  Dayle changed professions  after moving with Fred to Meadowview, Va.  Dayle has  a M.S. degree from Virginia Tech and a Ph.D. from the University of  Maine in plant pathology.  Fred and Dayle have two daughters, Kayla and  Paige.


Everyone who knows anything about  TACF would agree that Fred has done more toward restoring the American  chestnut than anyone else.  He has been and continues to be an  inspiration to each of us who pursue this  reality and marvel of scientific prosperity.  Based on his lifetime  commitment and dedication to restore the American chestnut, the  Rowlesburg Revitalization Committee is proud to honor Dr. Fred Hebard  and Ms. Dayle Zanzinger as Mr. and Ms. Chestnut for 2016.


West Virginia Chestnut Festival - Hosted by RRC

P.O. Box 135 - Rowlesburg, WV 26425 US

Copyright © 2019 Maggie DeWeirdt - Some images courtesy of TACF.

Powered by GoDaddy Website Builder

Cookie Policy

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.

Accept & Close