Blight Resistant American Chestnuts

[IkemanTx]

Somehow I missed it when it was announced a month ago, but apparently ESFR Research (a lab working closely with the American chestnut foundation) is really close to being able to release a transgenic (genes added, not crossbred) American Chestnut for restoration purposes. One of the cool things is that when done transgenically, there are no non-native American genes to try to breed out. They are actually breeding the scientifically produced chestnuts with 100% natural Americans from numerous sources to have a large of a genetic diversity as possible. They found a way to make a seedling flower and produce pollen within one year, rather than 5-7 that normally occurs. This means they can get pollen from trees that would have never made it old enough to flower before the blight killed them. Pretty neat way of doing it.

Last month's announcement of their showcase testing facility...

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[H20fwler]

That is great news!
I love everything about chestnuts, I have a small grove of twenty or so Dunstans that are around 9' tall haven't gotten any nuts off them yet... maybe this year.
Also have around fifty Chinese from a foot to four feet tall planted in some CRP that are just starting to bud, and another eighty or so to transplant that I started in the house a few months ago just waiting out the frost.
Chestnuts have a lot of value to all kinds of wildlife...would be great to see American chestnuts that are DR be available for planting back into their native habitat.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

I would love to plant 100% American Chestnut trees that would get 100 plus feet tall. I wouldn't see them that big, but hopefully I could enjoy the journey quite a way with them.

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[yoderjac]

I knew they had developed it but did not know they had the approval to use it yet. I still have no nuts from my largest Dunstans. I'm going to try grafting some other chestnut varieties from producing trees to some of the smaller ones to see if I can get some nuts sooner.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[DLH]

I've been told 50% of the crosses with the transgenic tree will have blight resistance. Then the next generation drops to 25% but that is a ton of resistant chestnuts that can be used for breeding. I'm hoping to get some of the scions once this gets approval or that's my hopes anyways.

 

[IkemanTx]

I've been told 50% of the crosses with the transgenic tree will have blight resistance. Then the next generation drops to 25% but that is a ton of resistant chestnuts that can be used for breeding. I'm hoping to get some of the scions once this gets approval or that's my hopes anyways.

If I'm not mistaken, the 50% is only when one resistant parent tree is bred to a non-resistant parent tree. Essentially all of the trees making it to breeding maturity will be the 50% that are resistant and they will be breeding exclusively with each other.

In that context, the 50% non-resistant become essentially germination rate failure as far as genetic material is concerned. The overall genetic bank would eventually be filled with exclusively resistant trees.... at least that is if I correctly remember the paper I read within the last few months.


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