![]() This is a minuscule alteration compared to the products of many traditional breeding methods. ![]() We’ve added the OxO gene (and a marker gene to help us ensure the resistance-enhancing gene is present) to the chestnut genome, which contains around 40,000 other genes. This common defense enzyme is found in all grain crops as well as in bananas, strawberries, peanuts and other familiar foods consumed daily by billions of humans and animals, and it’s unrelated to gluten proteins. This wheat gene produces an enzyme called oxalate oxidase (OxO), which detoxifies the oxalate that the fungus uses to form deadly cankers on the stems. To date, a gene from bread wheat has proven most effective at protecting the tree from the fungus-caused blight. We’ve tested more than 30 genes from different plant species that could potentially enhance blight resistance. Chuck Maynard, and I work with a team at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). One genetic tweak Thirty days after infection with chestnut blight, the wild-type American chestnuts on the left are wilted, while the ‘Darling 54’ transgenic trees are doing well. It’s taken 26 years of research involving a team of more than 100 university scientists and students here at the not-for-profit American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project, but we’ve finally developed a non-patented, blight-resistant American chestnut tree. To restore this beloved tree, we will need every tool available. It reduced the American chestnut from the dominant canopy species in the eastern forests to little more than a rare shrub.Īfter battling the blight for more than a century, researchers are using the modern tools of breeding, bio-control methods that rely on a virus that inhibits the growth of the infecting fungus, and direct genetic modification to return the American chestnut to its keystone position in our forests. This fungus was accidentally introduced into the United States over a century ago as people began to import Asian species of chestnut. The species was nearly wiped out by chestnut blight, a devastating disease caused by the exotic fungal pathogen Cryphonectria parasitica. Of the estimated four billion American chestnut trees that once grew from Maine to Georgia, only a remnant survive today. Because of their rapid growth rate and rot-resistant wood, they also have significant potential for carbon sequestration, important in these days of climate change. They provided habitat and a mast crop for wildlife, a nutritious nut crop for humans and a source of valuable timber. ![]() The “then boundless chestnut woods” Thoreau wrote about in Walden once grew throughout the Appalachian mountains. Forest serviceĪmerican chestnut trees were once among the most majestic hardwood trees in the eastern deciduous forests, many reaching 80 to 120 feet in height and eight feet or more in diameter.
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