Rabl t1_isxq0qo wrote
The American chestnut has driven nearly to extinction by chestnut blight. There are some groups trying to breed blight-resistant trees, but you're not going to find chestnut groves on the east coast.
boston_acc t1_isykp9w wrote
One of the saddest stories out there. The trees used to number in the billions in North America.
labyrinthian1 t1_it0117y wrote
Check out the American Chestnut Foundation! Scientists found a gene that gives chestnuts resistance to the blight. They're working on getting federal approval to pollinate wild chestnut trees with pollen from their engineered chestnuts and bring back the chestnut groves!
You can read about it here, it's a super cool story.
boston_acc t1_it04329 wrote
That’s fantastic. Another encouraging story was an adult chestnut found in a random stand of trees in Delaware. Quite wide bark, too. Hopefully in the next 40-50 years we have our beautiful trees back. It’s the least we can do, given it was humans’ global movement that brought the pathogen here.
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