41–50 of 90 posts
The goal can be accomplished through hybridization and backcrossing, with marker assisted selection. I have a Chinese-American F1 hybrid growing here on my farm that is in its 8th year doing very well. I keep meaning to get some more, since I don't get consistent pollination on it.
Interesting, because in Europe we have Cameraria ohridella [0] which wreak havoc on horse chestnuts. The moth replicates like crazy and the only recourse is collecting and burning fallen leaves every year. Luckily it looks worse than it is for the trees, they loose their leaves in August, but by then most of a years photosynthesis is done ( just losing like 17%) Anyhow American chestnuts are bad hosts for the moths,…
I hate leaf-miners with a passion. I planted a bunch of citrus trees a while ago, and citrus leaf-miners ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllocnistis_citrella ) took a great liking to them. They nearly killed a few of the trees – and this is in a backyard with me attending to them pretty much every day. I hate to think of the industrial-scale agricultural damage these little jerks must inflict on commercial citrus o…
Sadly, I think our (organic) efforts to get rid of the leaf-miners also killed off the butterflies.
I recently bought a house in a wooded area. In the backyard was a large old tree that I could not identify. After much searching I figured out that it was a chestnut tree! The article says they are the "perfect tree", but the chestnuts are incredibly sharp and tough. Very painful to step on.
This is exciting. The American Chestnut is an amazing tree that once grew with trunks as wide as a car. The article did not mention that once the blight was discovered, there was somewhat of a panic to harvest them, which rather reduced the genetic diversity and ruined the possibility of any natural resistance. The horrendous effect our species has on the diversity of life is incredibly sad, re: Dodos and Carrier Pig…
> But I would not cry if the biting mosquito that spreads disease, the bacteria that causes wet dog smell, and Cryphonectria parasitica went extinct never to appear again. Remember when Mao tried that with evil evil sparrows stealing seeds from the party and caused the greatest famine in human history? Fun times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
Curiously, resistance to oxalic acid is also a question in human health. We are protected by the symbiotic bacteria Oxalobacter formigenes , which normally functions to prevent oxalate kidney stones and is lost with some antibiotic treatments. So my first thought was to find a similar microbe that degrades oxalic acid and teach it to live on chestnut trees.
I have attempted to garner the interest of major enzyme corporation (Novozymes, for example) in mass producing the oxalate degrading enzyme through fermentation, but no response.
Interesting, because in Europe we have Cameraria ohridella [0] which wreak havoc on horse chestnuts. The moth replicates like crazy and the only recourse is collecting and burning fallen leaves every year. Luckily it looks worse than it is for the trees, they loose their leaves in August, but by then most of a years photosynthesis is done ( just losing like 17%) Anyhow American chestnuts are bad hosts for the moths,…
I hate leaf-miners with a passion. I planted a bunch of citrus trees a while ago, and citrus leaf-miners ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllocnistis_citrella ) took a great liking to them. They nearly killed a few of the trees – and this is in a backyard with me attending to them pretty much every day. I hate to think of the industrial-scale agricultural damage these little jerks must inflict on commercial citrus o…
They said that they regularly sprayed their trees with a mix of water and soft detergent early in the season, to prevent parasites and larvae from taking hold. As I understood it, they viewed soap as a simple solution. It was not completely organic and natural, but it helped to keep pests away and it did not seem to cause undue harm to the orchards or the apples.
Curiously, resistance to oxalic acid is also a question in human health. We are protected by the symbiotic bacteria Oxalobacter formigenes , which normally functions to prevent oxalate kidney stones and is lost with some antibiotic treatments. So my first thought was to find a similar microbe that degrades oxalic acid and teach it to live on chestnut trees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is traditional cross breeding, not genetic engineering per se. Although I have to wonder why one way seems natural and the other not, when they are both guided by human intervention.
No actually. The article mentions it closer to the end, but what seems like it has a good shot of beating the blight is pulling in genes from wheat which apparently can produce chemicals to neutralize the acid the fungus uses to digest and kill the tree.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/magazine/american-chestnu...
https://www.denverpost.com/2012/12/08/volunteers-work-to-rev...