Fantastic short story about the American Chestnut in the book Overstory by Richard Powers.
Came here to say this. The Chestnut tree chapter was my favorite in the book.
American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
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Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#62If this interests you and you want to keep exploring trees and forests check out Tom Wessels:
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#63How can they all die so fast and sudden? Wouldn't we expect a certain % to have some immunity, and then those genes pass on and the population eventually recovers?
Maybe that might have happened, but panic due to the blight massively increased logging of healthy Chestnuts trees. It wasn't just the blight that caused the ecological disaster; greed and shortsightedness probably played an equal part as well.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#64I often wonder how different the Blue Ridge mountains looked 100 years ago, with the American Chestnut and various other trees that different forms of blight have since killed. It’s kind of sad visiting Clingman’s Dome or Mt. Mitchell, where you can see the skeletons of all the dead trees.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#65I used to live in a historic property in rural MI built in the 1800s. There was a huge chestnut tree growing on it that was at least 50ft tall and looked like it could've been as old as the house.
I don't live near there anymore but I always wondered if it might have been an American chestnut.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#66If this interests you, I highly recommend the novel "Overstory", which was a pulitzer prize winner in the last few years.
It's a fictional collection of stories, all linked by trees (it makes sense if you've read it).
Beautifully written, and gave me a huge appreciation for trees.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
For anyone wanting to learn more about this breeding technique, it's called backcrossing[1]. It's also used for agricultural crops, but requires many generations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backcrossing
Simple, yet effective. I've heard it said modern fruits are relatively tasteless compared to their older counterparts because they are bred for size and hardiness. I wonder if these can be backcrossed as well to produce more flavorful fruits with similar sizes
The hard thing with taste is that it's usually the sum of many quantitative traits, each one being governed by several genes which can be located on different chromosomes, as seen in tomato[1]. Transferring enough of them into the modern genome through backcross would probably require a crazy amount of generations... or a crazy amount of luck :)
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
For anyone wanting to learn more about this breeding technique, it's called backcrossing[1]. It's also used for agricultural crops, but requires many generations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backcrossing
Simple, yet effective. I've heard it said modern fruits are relatively tasteless compared to their older counterparts because they are bred for size and hardiness. I wonder if these can be backcrossed as well to produce more flavorful fruits with similar sizes
I imagine soil quality and time of harvest also play a decent part in taste. All other factors being equal picking a green tomato isn’t going to be as good as letting it ripen on the vine naturally.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#69If this interests you, I highly recommend the novel "Overstory", which was a pulitzer prize winner in the last few years. It's a fictional collection of stories, all linked by trees (it makes sense if you've read it). Beautifully written, and gave me a huge appreciation for trees.
Reading the first chapters about the American Chestnut made me cry, and I’m not prone to crying. I had to put the book down for a week, and re-examine some of my beliefs about nature and mankind.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple, yet effective. I've heard it said modern fruits are relatively tasteless compared to their older counterparts because they are bred for size and hardiness. I wonder if these can be backcrossed as well to produce more flavorful fruits with similar sizes
I imagine soil quality and time of harvest also play a decent part in taste. All other factors being equal picking a green tomato isn’t going to be as good as letting it ripen on the vine naturally.
Terroir is the term for this. It's variation in flavour isn't as great as varietal/strain based differences. But yes it does have some impact most commonly taken advantage of in wine production.