Hacker News Reader

Comment by accrual | Hacker News Reader

The Wikipedia article suggests there are not just a few, but many known living examples of the American Chestnut. Not to say it doesn't need saving, but this seems better than just some stumps and shoots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_chestnut#Surviving_sp...

View on HN

It is quite common to see American Chestnuts in the northeast US, in the Hudson Valley, for example. Growing up in that area, I saw many with their big beautiful serrated leaves. The problem is that they never grow very tall or big before being attacked and killed by the blight. I believe some can even bear fruit though I do not personally recall this. There have been a number of really good articles in publications like the nytimes on bringing back the American chestnut to health via parallel tracks of cross-hybridization and GMO. I don't have the references right now, but a quick Internet search will reveal them.

Some do still bear fruit even inside blight range. I live in NJ and have a survivor that's stressed but able to produce. Got a few handfuls out last year and was able to try some for the first time. This yield is compared to the few truckloads I get off the 2 chinese chestnuts here, but it's something.

Basically, there's 2 ways to bring these trees back to blight range (or something approximating them). Method 1 is hybridization route with Chinese chestnut, method 2 is genetically modified route using a single wheat protein gene to confer resistance. Method 2 needs approval and there was a request for comment open a couple years about it.

I'm a bit late to this conversation but I wanted to drop in and support this comment. I live in North Carolina and have personally seen dozens of adolescent American Chestnut trees in the Appalachians in the western part of the state. They love the high ridge lines out there. Most of the chestnuts I've seen look like shrubs due to how they develop and can easily be missed of you're not looking carefully for them. From what I've read elsewhere most American Chestnuts only make it to 5-10 years old before the blight gets them. I've only seen a couple of trees taller than 10-15' tall in the wild (and have seen several infected with the blight).

The American Chestnut is "functionally extinct", because despite the fact that they are somewhat prominent throughout their native habitat as adolescents, they rarely (if ever) are able reach maturity and develop fruit (and therefore can't reproduce).

Here are a few pics of some adolescent chestnuts if anyone is curious:

- https://unsplash.com/photos/O9q1p_9bji0

- https://unsplash.com/photos/0s7_4fm8y-g

- https://unsplash.com/photos/WKl-XtkAnXM

- https://unsplash.com/photos/fESmwiRQf_c

Beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing. I am really fond of the shape of the leaves. Since this is HackerNews, I believe there is also an entrepreneurial angle for the reemergence of American Chestnuts for carbon offset markets and to produce food (roasted chestnuts are delicious!). If the GMO version of the American Chestnut is approved by the US government, it will be the first GMO tree.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com