Blight-Resistant American Chestnut Trees Take Root at ESF (SUNY-Environmental Science and Forestry)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.esf.edu/communications/view.asp?newsID=3062

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Blight-Resistant American Chestnut Trees Take Root at ESF[/font]

[font size=4]Powered by one gene from wheat, trees withstand attack by invasive fungus[/font]

11/5/2014

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• Support the 10,000 Chestnut Challenge


• American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project website

Scientists at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) are growing the first American chestnut trees that can withstand the blight that virtually eliminated the once-dominant tree from the eastern United States.

Members of the ESF research team recently published three peer-reviewed papers that, along with continuing research, support their conviction that their biotechnology work with a gene originating in wheat makes the American chestnut tree at least as blight resistant as the Chinese chestnut tree that can co-exist with blight with minimal ill effects.

"Our goal was to develop an American chestnut tree that has blight resistance equal to that of a Chinese chestnut and we are there. We've done it," said Dr. William Powell, an ESF professor who leads the research project along with Dr. Chuck Maynard. "The leaf assays show it, the small-stem assays show it," Powell said, referring to the analytical processes the researchers go through to determine the level of blight resistance. "These American chestnut trees are blight resistant."

"It is tremendously satisfying to reach this level of success. We have a lot of people to thank for this. It's been a long haul but we are happy with where we are," Maynard said. A significant milestone in the process, he said, was reached when the transgenic trees, inoculated with the blight during testing, remained essentially as healthy as control trees that had been inoculated with only water.

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[RiverLover]

1. Fantastic news!!! nt

[postulater]

2. I wonder how that new version of the chestnut will fit back into the forest ecosystems

where the original ones once lived.

These forests have certainly changed since the chestnut died off. Will this new one now become an invasive species or will it just fit back in nicely.

[bananas]

3. Non-GMO blight-resistant strains are already being planted

http://blogs.usda.gov/2013/12/06/restoration-efforts-may-mean-more-chestnuts-roasting/

Restoration Efforts May Mean More ‘Chestnuts Roasting….’
Posted by Ryan Johnson, North Carolina, U.S. Forest Service, on December 6, 2013 at 10:30 AM

<snip>

The U.S. Forest Service and its partners may be one step closer to restoring the American chestnut tree to parts of the mountains and forests of the southern United States. Since 2009, they planted close to 1,000 potentially-blight resistant American chestnut trees on national forests in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

To date, more than 80 percent of the American chestnut backcross hybrid saplings planted in the national forests have survived. Most of the trees are healthy, growing steadily and showing differing levels of resistance, a sign of encouragement to the hopeful community of people working to return the tree to its native range.

The once-young seedlings have reached an average height of 8 feet and have overcome what Stacy Clark, a Forest Service scientist at the agency’s Southern Research Station, calls “planting shock” by developing a strong root system and adapting to their new environment.

<snip>

There are good reasons not to use the GMO versions:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101689073

Risk Expert Nassim Taleb: GMOs Could Destroy the Global Ecosystem

[Nihil]

4. Kick for an important reply. (n/t)