Restoring A Forest, One Tree At A Time
Chestnut trees ca. late 1800's (credit: Forest History Society)
When European colonists arrived in North America chestnut forests (Castanea dentata) stretched from Maine to Georgia and extended into the Midwest. At the beginning of the 21st Century, this dominance began to change. Once numbering in the billions of trees across this vast range, the chestnuts began to perish when a fungal blight was inadvertently introduced from Asia. The chestnuts had no genetic resistance to this pathogen and massively perished. By the 1950's, virtually all chestnut trees in the USA were dead. Their demise was likely one of America's greatest ecological disasters considering the importance chestnuts played as a keystone species for forest biodiversity along with economic losses from their importance as timber, in maintaining water supplies, and as food.
Their situation may be changing. Research underway at the American Chestnut Foundation has the goal to produce a blight resistant tree. The American Chestnut Research & Restoration Project, based at the College of Environmental Science & Forestry based at SUNY, aims to rescue, propagate, and replant chestnut trees to their former glory. Using traditional plant breeding combined with advanced biotechnology this ambitious restoration project is in progress on degraded landscapes of this former iconic American tree. Some recent discoveries using genomic DNA mapping tools have identified a few trees with a natural level immunity to the blight as well. Enhancing the propagation of these selections for reforestation
Two of the prime investigators discuss the chestnut project with the goal of restoring the tree nationwide. It will require decades of effort to reach but with so many denuded landscapes in the Eastern United States, the Appalachian mountains, and across the South, you could soon have the opportunity to plant some blight resistant chestnut saplings yourself. It sounds like a project worth joining. WHB