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TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

tacf.org

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Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#31

Post by dzdt »

The headline here does not come from the original article and is misleading. The actual article title is "Darling D58".

The closest subheading matching the title given here is "Why TACF is No Longer Supporting Development of D58 or Deregulation of the Darling Line."

The American Chestnut Foundation is still most certainly pursuing its mission to reseed America with blight-resistant seeds. Just they've discovered that a previously promising line of seeds (Darling D58) is actually seriously flawed and efforts to work with that particular line will be abandoned.

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#32

Post by joe_the_user »

joecool1029 wrote: post #11
eYrKEC2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought some of those seeds and I just thought I had a black thumb. I planted my surviving seedlings this fall, a month before frost, and I hope they will survive winter..

I live in blight region (NJ). We have American seedlings growing here for a few years now, but I don't have faith that inside the range they'll reach maturity. Our mature American Chestnut tree is well established enough that it dies back some every few decades and recovers. This year I got 50 or so chestnuts out of it. I ate a few, they are great and never seem to get the weevil that the Chinese trees we have do (ba…

I live in Nevada City, California. We have several productive chestnut trees growing around and I can't really tell if they're Chinese or American. They do not ever get anything growing in the nuts so maybe they're American. Otoh, the weevil might not be universal.

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#33

Post by tamcap »

gwern wrote: post #21

That is disappointing, but I'm also a little curious - why did this go all the way to field trials if the gene insertion was completely screwed up, to the point of being on the wrong chromosome ? In November 2023, through molecular analyses performed by partners at the University of New England and University of Maine, TACF learned that the OxO gene of all Darling 58 trees was on a different chromosome than expected…

It's possible they checked before (and the article suggests they had an inclination where the gene should be) but the resultant backcrosses involved a spontaneous recombination of the relevant fragment. It's possible someone checked the wrong vial in lab, or mislabeled results. It's possible something funny "just happened".

Wet lab is hard, and everyone is chasing the eureka moment.

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#34

Post by Brian_K_White »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #25
xivzgrev wrote: post #20

Click baity - they are ceasing distribution of blight resistant seeds that died more frequently than expected. It’s not viable in wild so no go. This headline would have you thinking they’re holding back progress or something. But it’s clear they are the opposite, cutting their losses and investing elsewhere.

ACF/ESF is running the project. They are providing an update. No clickbait, and a very well written update at that.

The article is fine. The title here is edited and clickbait garbage.

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#35

Post by KingLancelot »

joecool1029 wrote: post #11
eYrKEC2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought some of those seeds and I just thought I had a black thumb. I planted my surviving seedlings this fall, a month before frost, and I hope they will survive winter..

I live in blight region (NJ). We have American seedlings growing here for a few years now, but I don't have faith that inside the range they'll reach maturity. Our mature American Chestnut tree is well established enough that it dies back some every few decades and recovers. This year I got 50 or so chestnuts out of it. I ate a few, they are great and never seem to get the weevil that the Chinese trees we have do (ba…

[dead]

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#37

Post by hinkley »

pfdietz wrote: post #36
hinkley wrote: post #18

This same organization is also running the backcrossing program, aren't they?

Yes. I planted three of those plants (small bare root things) on my property this year.

See I always thought it was two groups doing separate projects and was surprised to see the other one mentioned on their web page.

Are they doing okay?

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#38

Post by robwwilliams »

gwern wrote: post #21

That is disappointing, but I'm also a little curious - why did this go all the way to field trials if the gene insertion was completely screwed up, to the point of being on the wrong chromosome ? In November 2023, through molecular analyses performed by partners at the University of New England and University of Maine, TACF learned that the OxO gene of all Darling 58 trees was on a different chromosome than expected…

This was often NOT done in many transgenic experiments 20 to 30 years ago. In mice transgenic insertions and inadvertent disruption of genes near the transgene insertion are only occasionally disruptive. The reelin gene disruption is a good example.

This work was started long before cheap whole genome sequencing.

However, comments are right—it was never too hard to examine the flanking sequence around the insertion site.

Just offered to help the team with telomere-to-telomere of the few rare wild American chestnut survivors. There are not that many.

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#39

Post by psychlops »

joecool1029 wrote: post #11
eYrKEC2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought some of those seeds and I just thought I had a black thumb. I planted my surviving seedlings this fall, a month before frost, and I hope they will survive winter..

I live in blight region (NJ). We have American seedlings growing here for a few years now, but I don't have faith that inside the range they'll reach maturity. Our mature American Chestnut tree is well established enough that it dies back some every few decades and recovers. This year I got 50 or so chestnuts out of it. I ate a few, they are great and never seem to get the weevil that the Chinese trees we have do (ba…

I'm also in NJ and was specifically waiting for the Darling 58 to plant here. Great to hear you have a long living one and hope it stays healthy.

Re: TACF is no longer supporting development of D58 American chestnut trees

#40

Post by hedora »

tamcap wrote: post #33
gwern wrote: post #21

That is disappointing, but I'm also a little curious - why did this go all the way to field trials if the gene insertion was completely screwed up, to the point of being on the wrong chromosome ? In November 2023, through molecular analyses performed by partners at the University of New England and University of Maine, TACF learned that the OxO gene of all Darling 58 trees was on a different chromosome than expected…

It's possible they checked before (and the article suggests they had an inclination where the gene should be) but the resultant backcrosses involved a spontaneous recombination of the relevant fragment. It's possible someone checked the wrong vial in lab, or mislabeled results. It's possible something funny "just happened". Wet lab is hard, and everyone is chasing the eureka moment.

My reading of the article suggests they modified the genomes of multiple trees, and the “winners” that got into the field happened to have ancestors that had moved the target gene to a different chromosome.

They’re simultaneously trying to make precision modifications to the genome and also trying to preserve hundreds of wild strains.

If they succeed, the required technological advances will probably be broadly applicable.

I wish them luck.

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