A Great Loss!

[MRMCR]

Birch trees had a big problem .....but the disease resistant Heritage Birch solved that.......disease problems in trees can wipe them out totally while insect problems can be solved....elms verse hemlock example.......many elm street trees were replaced with by sycamores......

[Bucksnbows]

Hemlock wooly adelgids are another Asian import and they continue to wipe out native hemlocks

 

 

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[stratocaster]

Fortunately that effort is well under way.  

 

https://www.acf.org/

I'm really interested in this effort and the effort to plant white oaks.  From the research I've done I've discovered that there are a few surviving pure American chesnuts (over 120 years old) that are being used to cross breed with chinese trees to produce a tree that is 97% pure American that is not GMO and is blight resistant.  I'm not planting any Asian trees only the American disease resistant variety.  Hopefully when I'm dead the trees I've planted will have survived and my kids will be able to sit under the shade they provide and eat the chesnuts they produce. Maybe some of the wild trees here in NJ have the strength to live and grow. 

[Mink]

It's a sad feeling walking through our forrest in the North East and knowing that somethings terribly wrong. If you hike through Stokes or High Point on a quite fall day you can almost feel the thousands of chestnut sprouts begging to be able to grow. What a tremendous loss it was to the wildlife, no other tree could match it, not by a long shot!

[Haskell_Hunter]

The GMO shortcut.  "Science" people chomping at the bit to release demons:

 

http://scienceline.org/2017/01/american-chestnut-tree-good-shot-making-comeback/

 

Better to continue with conventional breeding selecting the most promising candidates as stated in the article:

 

"The Foundation also plans to sequence the trees’ genomes to help select the best ones for breeding — those that inherit the greatest number of resistance genes."

 

Nothing wrong with GMO.  We've been doing it for centuries.  I'm 100% for GMO.

[tick trawler]

Nothing wrong with GMO.  We've been doing it for centuries.  I'm 100% for GMO.

 

 

 

To release a novel persistent plant (one created through genetic manipulation not conventional breeding) into to the wild would require a degree of responsibility that no human can rightly claim.

[Haskell_Hunter]

To release a novel persistent plant (one created through genetic manipulation not conventional breeding) into to the wild would require a degree of responsibility that no human can rightly claim.

 

Why?

[tick trawler]

There are always undesirable results when a plant gene is manipulated by firing other genetic material into its code.  It is a crude process that leads to a functional result, however it is much later determined what these negative effects are.  Plausibly, many have not been found yet in corn, soybeans, fish, etc., while other defects have been found and then denied by the very same interests that invoked the plant genetic manipulations.

 

I have two other concerns.  The first is that the scientists are going to patent their version of the plant and may program into its offspring a failure to germinate.  Both of these items have been executed before.  This route would substantially increase revenue from the patented plant royalties (plausibly paid by government agencies in their haste to introduce a chestnut).  This would also mean that the pollen may cause sterility in other chestnut germplasm, causing budding chestnut populations to fail or be suppressed.  Which leads to my next concern.

 

The chestnut embodied the idea of American self sufficiency.  It was food and fodder and trade - it meant everything to rural peoples.  The chestnut plant therefore represents true power and a way to escape from the system we currently live under. 

 

Therefore there will always be interests, particularly in the science community due to its funding structure (climate change anyone?), that will always be motivated (seem to find the funding) to cancel or restrict or inhibit or sabotage this tree breeding project while pretending to be our saviors.

Edited February 14, 2017 by tick trawler

[Haskell_Hunter]

There are always undesirable results when a plant gene is manipulated by firing other genetic material into its code.  It is a crude process that leads to a functional result, however it is much later determined what these negative effects are.  Plausibly, many have not been found yet in corn, soybeans, fish, etc., while other defects have been found and then denied by the very same interests that invoked the plant genetic manipulations.

 

I have two other concerns.  The first is that the scientists are going to patent their version of the plant and may program into its offspring a failure to germinate.  Both of these items have been executed before.  This route would substantially increase revenue from the patented plant royalties (plausibly paid by government agencies in their haste to introduce a chestnut).  This would also mean that the pollen may cause sterility in other chestnut germplasm, causing budding chestnut populations to fail or be suppressed.  Which leads to my next concern.

 

The chestnut embodied the idea of American self sufficiency.  It was food and fodder and trade - it meant everything to rural peoples.  The chestnut plant therefore represents true power and a way to escape from the system we currently live under. 

 

Therefore there will always be interests, particularly in the science community due to its funding structure (climate change anyone?), that will always be motivated (seem to find the funding) to cancel or restrict or inhibit or sabotage this tree breeding project while pretending to be our saviors.

 

Wow, this reads like both a science fiction plot and a dark, multinational corporate domination plan.

 

I think you're making a big deal out of something that really isn't.  As far as I know, one of the largest GMO crops is corn.  I'm not aware of any of the things you've mentioned have happened with corn.

 

And people making money off of special breeds and seeds has been going on forever.  Pick up a Gurney's, Stokes, or Burpee catalog and you'll see their own brand or variation on a crop that you can only purchase from them.  Many of the hybrids don't see or have a very low germination rate after their first crop.  So I'm not at all concerned with a GMO variation coming out with the same traits.

 

And like some other cross-breeding projects that are going on, GMO projects can be for "the greater good" and may actually produce stronger wild crops that are more sustainable than their previous generation.  And excellent example of this is the American Chestnut.  By genetically modifying it to be more resistant, and by focusing specifically on those genes, it take the laborious guesswork out of crossbreeding generations of trees to get the same result.

 

A lot of the things you point out are already happening today and with very little if any adverse affect on crops of the environment.  We've taken selective breeding and improved it dramatically to specifically manipulate genes to improve a species.  That's science, and that's cool.

[Rusty]

Rusty you should report any flowering trees to the NJ contact of the American chestnut society. Google it. I know of hundreds of stumps still producing saplings but not one has ever lived long enough to flower. This is in Middlesex county.

 

Sadly I just found out today that one of the biggest chestnuts by me succumbed to the fungus this past year.  I've been keeping and eye on it, it's a single stem tree as big around as my arm and I had really high hopes for that tree.  Oddly the blight killed the top of the tree 10 feet up instead of down low like it usually does.  The bottom branches are still alive.  

Edited February 20, 2017 by Rusty

[LittleM]

While attempting to re-establish the chestnut is a noble cause, I hate to break it to you all, New Jersey, at the very least, is a lost cause for native versus non-native species as well as disease.  It's over.  Most of the conservation efforts in NJ is a money-making scheme ...................

[Mink]

Sadly I just found out today that one of the biggest chestnuts by me succumbed to the fungus this past year.  I've been keeping and eye on it, it's a single stem tree as big around as my arm and I had really high hopes for that tree.  Oddly the blight killed the top of the tree 10 feet up instead of down low like it usually does.  The bottom branches are still alive.  

 

 

I feel your pain, I've finding and following certain trees for decades only to watch them eventually die. Someday, maybe someday!

[tick trawler]

This article claims we will all be able to buy genetically modified chestnut trees in 3 to 5 years. 

 

http://theconversation.com/new-genetically-engineered-american-chestnut-will-help-restore-the-decimated-iconic-tree-52191

 

The article claims that their genetically modified chestnut plant called "darling 54" is not patented and must go through government approval processes leading to the 3 to 5 year timeline on tree availability.

[Haskell_Hunter]

The project's website.

 

Great article!  Hooray for science!

 

http://www.esf.edu/chestnut/

[tick trawler]

The fox is still in charge of the "science" henhouse, evidenced by the "climate change" references.