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
#2Other HN discussions of the chestnut blight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13478910
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#3Episode of the podcast "Atlas Obscura" which provides some background on the destruction of the American Chestnut and ongoing efforts to revive the species:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/podcast-american-chest...
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#4For the record, if you discover a long-lost extinct species, wait until you’ve collected seeds before you tell the world where you found it.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#5Saw this really amazing video[0] the other day about American Chestnut Foundation's breeding program in Virginia to revive the American chestnut
Basically they hybridized it with Chinese/Japanese chestnuts (which are blight resistant). Then they take the offspring, test for blight resistance and rebreed those back with purebred American chestnuts. Then they repeat the process. Take those offspring, select for blight resistance, rebreed with American species, etc
After a few generations they created an American chestnut tree that looks almost exactly like the purebred versions but retains the blight resistance of the Japanese and Chinese species
Really amazing work
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#6Other HN discussions of the chestnut blight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13478910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26441593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30333498
There was a crime pays and botany doesnt podcast 2 weeks ago with an interesting interview with someone from this project. http://www.esf.edu/chestnut/
The group is mentioned in the first comment of the first link you posted from 2017, so people might be interested in a more recent update.
The interviewer is not for everyone but I thought it was pretty good discussion. https://www.spreaker.com/user/16676611/restoring-the-america...
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#7Other HN discussions of the chestnut blight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13478910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26441593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30333498
There was a crime pays and botany doesnt podcast 2 weeks ago with an interesting interview with someone from this project. http://www.esf.edu/chestnut/ The group is mentioned in the first comment of the first link you posted from 2017, so people might be interested in a more recent update. The interviewer is not for everyone but I thought it was pretty good discussion. https://www.spreaker.com/user/16676611/restoring…
Big fan of crime pays but botany doesn't. I'll need to give that podcast a listen, thanks!
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#8Saw this really amazing video[0] the other day about American Chestnut Foundation's breeding program in Virginia to revive the American chestnut Basically they hybridized it with Chinese/Japanese chestnuts (which are blight resistant). Then they take the offspring, test for blight resistance and rebreed those back with purebred American chestnuts. Then they repeat the process. Take those offspring, select for blight…
Why don't they use agrobacterium transfection, gene guns, or molecular techniques to directly transfer the resistance genes over? Do we not know what the genes themselves are?
I'm not criticizing their technique! Nor do I think I know better. This is amazing and valuable work, and I'd love to know more.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#9This is amazing. My parents liked to tell me that roasted chestnuts used to be a ubiquitous street food in NYC until they disappeared.
Re: American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists
#10There is one in North Bergen, NJ. I won't say where. They can find it themselves!