Researchers trial "genetically engineered" tree to rebuild US chestnut population hit by chestnut blight

Once a dominant species of the eastern US, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was devastated early last century by the disease chestnut blight, caused by the fungal pathogen Cryphonectria parasitica which was recently detected in southwest England. Now researchers at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), part of the State University of New York, have planted 100 transgenic young trees which carry a wheat gene enabling them to withstand the blight in a "seed orchard"in upstate New York. When they grow large enough to produce pollen, this will be used to fertilise the flowers from wild-type "mother trees" to preserve genetic diversity. Half of the resulting nuts will inherit the blight-resistance gene. "They will be the basis of the trees we will eventually give out to the public," said ESF professor William Powell, who has led the project. "And they'll be the basis for the trees we will use for demonstration and research for the next 100 years."