[HN Gopher] American Chestnut Foundation Ceasing Distribution of...
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       American Chestnut Foundation Ceasing Distribution of Blight-
       Resistant Seeds
        
       Author : cnntth
       Score  : 54 points
       Date   : 2023-12-08 20:21 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (tacf.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (tacf.org)
        
       | cnntth wrote:
       | The current seeds given to the public the ACF were counting on
       | have very poor survival/growth metrics and they're giving up on
       | that line; big shame as those are the seeds they offered to
       | donors (and thus a way of getting involved as as outsider).
        
         | eYrKEC2 wrote:
         | I bought some of those seeds and I just thought I had a black
         | thumb. I planted my surviving seedlings this fall, a month
         | before frost, and I hope they will survive winter..
        
           | joecool1029 wrote:
           | I live in blight region (NJ). We have American seedlings
           | growing here for a few years now, but I don't have faith that
           | inside the range they'll reach maturity.
           | 
           | Our mature American Chestnut tree is well established enough
           | that it dies back some every few decades and recovers. This
           | year I got 50 or so chestnuts out of it. I ate a few, they
           | are great and never seem to get the weevil that the Chinese
           | trees we have do (basically if I don't process the Chinese
           | ones immediately after harvesting in a hot water bath, they
           | will have a grub bore out of them in a week or so).
           | 
           | Been trying to find people outside blight region (somewhere
           | like Michigan/Wisconsin) to plant the American ones so they
           | have a shot. This tree is not a result of any of the ACF's
           | crossbreeding, it's just a survivor that's over 100 years
           | old.
        
       | chrisdhoover wrote:
       | American chestnut was the redwood of the east. Its damn shame it
       | is not thriving
        
       | yinser wrote:
       | There is a pretty fascinating correlation here between growth
       | rate and susceptibility to mortality from the fungal infection.
       | Remove the toxicity of oxalic acid and suddenly growth rate
       | reduces. Obviously there's a ton of variables but,
       | oversimplifying, it almost seems like a deal with the devil:
       | increase growth rates but at the cost of increased mortality to
       | the blight.
        
       | xkekjrktllss wrote:
       | So sad :(
        
       | rowls66 wrote:
       | I found a chestnut tree of moderate size on my property this
       | year, and for time thought it might be an American Chestnut. Alas
       | I eventually concluded that it was a Chineese Chesnut. Still a
       | nice tree, but hardly as exciting.
        
       | senderista wrote:
       | What a disappointment. I don't live in the eastern US but I would
       | have loved to see chestnut trees there in their prime.
        
       | chrisbrandow wrote:
       | Brutal.
        
       | zwieback wrote:
       | The headline sounds like the final end of the experiments but to
       | me it sounds more like a setback, e.g. eventually they hope to
       | get a transgenic blight-resistant tree they can distribute.
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-08 23:00 UTC)