Before diseases wiped out about 3 billion or more diseases, this tree helped build an industrialized America. In order to restore their lost glory, we may need to embrace and repair nature.
Sometime in 1989, Herbert Darling received a call: A hunter told him that he had encountered a tall American chestnut tree on Darling’s property in the Zor Valley in western New York. Darling knew that chestnuts were once one of the most important trees in the area. He also knew that a deadly fungus almost wiped out the species for more than a century and a half. When he heard the hunter’s report about seeing a live chestnut, the trunk of the chestnut was two feet long and reached a five-story building, he doubted it. “I’m not sure if I believe he knows what it is,” Darling said.
When Darling found the tree, it was like looking at a mythical figure. He said: “It was so straightforward and perfect to make a specimen-it was great.” But Darling also saw that the tree was dying. Since the early 1900s, it has been hit by the same epidemic, which is estimated to have caused 3 billion or more deaths from such diseases. This is the first human-borne disease that mainly destroys trees in modern history. Darling thought, if he couldn’t save that tree, he would at least save its seeds. There is only one problem: the tree is not doing anything because there are no other chestnut trees nearby that can pollinate it.
Darling is an engineer who uses engineer’s methods to solve problems. The following June, when pale yellow flowers were scattered on the green canopy of the tree, Darling filled shot ammunition with shot powder, which was taken from the male flowers of another chestnut tree he had learned, and drove north. It took an hour and a half. He shot the tree from the rented helicopter. (He runs a successful construction company that can afford extravagance.) This effort failed. The following year, Darling tried again. This time, he and his son dragged the scaffolding to the chestnuts on the top of the hill and built an 80-foot-high platform in more than two weeks. My dear climbed up the canopy and scrubbed the flowers with the worm-like flowers on another chestnut tree.
That fall, the branches of Darling’s tree produced burrs covered with green thorns. These thorns were so thick and sharp that they might be mistaken for cacti. The harvest is not high, there are about 100 nuts, but Darling has planted some and pinned hope. He and a friend also contacted Charles Maynard and William Powell, two tree geneticists at the State University of New York School of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse (Chuck and Bill died). They recently started a low-budget chestnut research project there. Darling gave them some chestnuts and asked the scientists if they could use them to bring them back. Darling said: “This seems to be a great thing.” “The entire eastern United States.” However, a few years later, his own tree died.
Since Europeans began to settle in North America, the story about the continent’s forests has been largely a loss. However, Darling’s proposal is now considered by many to be one of the most promising opportunities to start revising the story – earlier this year, the Templeton World Charity Foundation put Maynard and Powell’s The project granted most of its history, and this effort was able to dismantle a small-scale operation that cost more than $3 million. It was the largest single gift ever donated to the university. The research of geneticists forces environmentalists to face the prospect in a new and sometimes uncomfortable way, that repairing the natural world does not necessarily mean returning to an intact Garden of Eden. Rather, it may mean embracing the role we have assumed: the engineer of everything including nature.
Chestnut leaves are long and toothed, and look like two small green saw blades connected back to back to the central vein of the leaf. At one end, two leaves are connected to a stem. At the other end, they form a sharp tip, which is often bent to the side. This unexpected shape cuts through the silent green and sand dunes in the woods, and the incredible reverie of hikers aroused people’s attention, reminding them of their journey through the forest that once had many powerful trees.
Only by literature and memory can we fully understand these trees. Lucille Griffin, executive director of the American Chestnut Collaborator Foundation, once wrote that there you will see chestnuts so rich that in spring, the creamy, linear flowers on the tree “like The foamy waves rolled down the hillside”, leading to grandfather’s memories. In autumn, the tree will explode again, this time with prickly burrs covering up the sweetness. “When the chestnuts were ripe, I piled half a bushel in the winter,” a vibrant Thoreau wrote in “Walden.” “In that season, it was very exciting to roam the endless chestnut forest in Lincoln at that time.”
Chestnuts are very reliable. Unlike oak trees that only drop acorns within a few years, chestnut trees produce a large number of nut crops every fall. Chestnuts are also easy to digest: you can peel them and eat a raw one. (Try using acorns rich in tannins-or don’t do it.) Everyone eats chestnuts: deer, squirrel, bear, bird, human. The farmers let go of their pigs and gain fat in the forest. During Christmas, trains full of chestnuts rolled from the mountains to the city. Yes, they were indeed burned by the bonfire. “It is said that in some areas, farmers get more income from the sale of chestnuts than all other agricultural products,” said William L. Bray, the first dean of the school where Maynard and Powell later worked. Written in 1915. It is the people’s tree, most of which grow in the forest.
It also provides more than just food. Chestnut trees can rise to 120 feet, and the first 50 feet are not disturbed by branches or knots. This is the dream of lumberjacks. Although it is neither the most beautiful nor the strongest wood, it grows very fast, especially when it re-germinates after cutting and does not rot. As the durability of railroad ties and telephone poles surpassed aesthetics, Chestnut helped build an industrialized America. Thousands of barns, cabins and churches made of chestnuts still stand; an author in 1915 estimated that this was the most felled tree species in the United States.
In most of the east-the trees range from Mississippi to Maine, and from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River-chestnuts are also one of them. But in the Appalachians, it was a big tree. Billions of chestnuts live on these mountains.
It is appropriate that Fusarium wilt first appeared in New York, which is the gateway to many Americans. In 1904, a strange infection was discovered on the bark of an endangered chestnut tree in the Bronx Zoo. Researchers quickly determined that the fungus that caused bacterial blight (later called Cryphonectria parasitica) arrived on imported Japanese trees as early as 1876. (There is usually a time lag between the introduction of a species and the discovery of obvious problems.)
Soon people in several states reported dying trees. In 1906, William A. Murrill, a mycologist at the New York Botanical Garden, published the first scientific article on the disease. Muriel pointed out that this fungus causes a yellowish-brown blister infection on the bark of the chestnut tree, which eventually makes it clean around the trunk. When nutrients and water can no longer flow up and down in the bark vessels under the bark, everything above the death ring will die.
Some people cannot imagine-or do not want others to imagine-a tree that disappears from the forest. In 1911, Sober Paragon Chestnut Farm, a kindergarten company in Pennsylvania, believed that the disease was “more than just a fear.” Long-term existence of irresponsible journalists. The farm was closed in 1913. Two years ago, Pennsylvania convened a chestnut disease committee, authorized to spend US$275,000 (a huge sum of money at the time), and announced a package of powers to take measures to combat this pain, including the right to destroy trees on private property. Pathologists recommend removing all chestnut trees within a few miles of the front of the main infection to produce a fire prevention effect. But it turns out that this fungus can leap to uninfected trees, and its spores are infected by wind, birds, insects and people. The plan was abandoned.
By 1940, almost no big chestnuts were infected. Today, the value of billions of dollars has been wiped out. As fusarium wilt cannot survive in the soil, chestnut roots continue to sprout, and more than 400 million of them still remain in the forest. However, Fusarium wilt found a reservoir in the oak tree where it lived without causing significant damage to its host. From there, it quickly spreads to new chestnut buds and knocks them back to the ground, usually long before they reach the flowering stage.
The timber industry has found alternatives: oak, pine, walnut, and ash. Tanning, another major industry that relies on chestnut trees, has switched to synthetic tanning agents. For many poor farmers, there is nothing to switch: no other native tree provides farmers and their animals with free, reliable and abundant calories and protein. Chestnut blight can be said to end a common practice of Appalachians’ self-sufficient agriculture, forcing people in the area to have an obvious choice: go into a coal mine or move away. The historian Donald Davis wrote in 2005: “Due to the death of chestnuts, the entire world is dead, eliminating the survival customs that have existed in the Appalachian Mountains for more than four centuries. ”
Powell grew up far away from Appalachians and chestnuts. His father served in the Air Force and moved to his family: Indiana, Florida, Germany, and the east coast of Maryland. Although he spent a career in New York, his speeches retained the frankness of the Midwest and the subtle but discernible bias of the South. His simple manners and simple tailoring style complement each other, featuring jeans with seemingly endless plaid shirt rotation. His favorite interjection is “wow”.
Powell plans to become a veterinarian until a professor of genetics promises him the hope of a new, greener agriculture based on genetically modified plants that can produce its own insect and disease prevention capabilities. “I thought, wow, it’s not good to make plants that can protect yourself from pests, and you don’t have to spray any pesticides on them?” Powell said. “Of course, the rest of the world does not follow the same idea.”
When Powell arrived at Utah State University’s graduate school in 1983, he didn’t mind. However, he happened to join a biologist’s laboratory, and he was working on a virus that could debilitate blight fungus. Their attempts to use this virus did not go particularly well: it did not spread from tree to tree on its own, so it had to be customized for dozens of individual fungal types. Despite this, Powell was fascinated by the story of a big tree falling down and provided a scientific solution for the occurrence of human-made tragic errors. He said: “Due to the poor management of our goods moving around the world, we accidentally imported pathogens.” “I thought: Wow, this is interesting. There is a chance to bring it back.”
Powell was not the first attempt to eliminate losses. After it was clear that American chestnuts were doomed to fail, the USDA tried to plant Chinese chestnut trees, a cousin that is more resistant to wilting, to understand whether this species can replace American chestnuts. However, chestnuts grow most outwards, and are more like fruit trees than fruit trees. They were dwarfed in the forest by oak trees and other American giants. Their growth is blocked, or they simply die. Scientists also tried to breed chestnuts from the United States and China together, hoping to produce a tree with the positive characteristics of both. The government’s efforts failed and were abandoned.
Powell ended up working at the State University of New York School of Environmental Science and Forestry, where he met Chuck Maynard, a geneticist who planted trees in the laboratory. Just a few years ago, scientists created the first genetically modified plant tissue-adding a gene that confers antibiotic resistance to tobacco for technical demonstrations rather than any commercial use. Maynard (Maynard) began to dabble in new technology, while looking for useful technology related to it. At that time, Darling had some seeds and a challenge: repairing American chestnuts.
In thousands of years of traditional plant breeding practices, farmers (and recent scientists) have crossed varieties with desired traits. Then, the genes are naturally mixed together, and people choose promising mixtures for higher quality-larger, more delicious fruit or disease resistance. Usually, it takes several generations to produce a product. This process is slow and a bit confusing. Darling wondered if this method would produce a tree as good as his wild nature. He told me: “I think we can do better.”
Genetic engineering means greater control: even if a specific gene comes from an unrelated species, it can be selected for a specific purpose and inserted into the genome of another organism. (Organisms with genes from different species are “genetically modified.” Recently, scientists have developed techniques to directly edit the genome of target organisms.) This technology promises unprecedented precision and speed. Powell believes that this seems to be very suitable for American chestnuts, which he calls “almost perfect trees”-strong, tall, and rich in food sources, requiring only a very specific correction: resistance to bacterial blight.
Dear agree. He said: “We must have engineers in our business.” “From construction to construction this is just a kind of automation.”
Powell and Maynard estimate that it may take ten years to find the genes that confer resistance, develop technology to add them to the chestnut genome, and then grow them. “We are just guessing,” Powell said. “No one has any genes that confer fungal resistance. We really started from a blank space.”
Darling sought support from the American Chestnut Foundation, a non-profit organization established in the early 1980s. Its leader told him that he was basically lost. They are committed to hybridization and remain vigilant about genetic engineering, which has aroused opposition from environmentalists. Therefore, Darling created his own non-profit organization to fund genetic engineering work. Powell said that the organization wrote the first check to Maynard and Powell for $30,000. (In 1990, the national organization reformed and accepted the Darling’s secessionist group as its first state branch, but some members were still skeptical or completely hostile to genetic engineering.)
Maynard and Powell are at work. Almost immediately, their estimated timetable proved to be unrealistic. The first obstacle is figuring out how to grow chestnuts in the laboratory. Maynard tried mixing chestnut leaves and growth hormone in a round shallow plastic petri dish, a method used to grow poplars. It turns out that this is unrealistic. New trees will not develop roots and shoots from specialized cells. Maynard said: “I am the global leader in killing chestnut trees.” A researcher at the University of Georgia, Scott Merkle (Scott Merkle) finally taught Maynard how to go from pollination to the next Plant chestnuts in embryos at the developmental stage.
Finding the right gene-Powell’s work-also proved to be challenging. He spent several years researching an antibacterial compound based on frog genes, but gave up the compound because of concerns that the public might not accept trees with frogs. He also looked for a gene against bacterial blight in chestnuts, but found that protecting the tree involves many genes (they identified at least six). Then, in 1997, a colleague returned from a scientific meeting and listed an abstract and presentation. Powell noted a title titled “Expression of oxalate oxidase in transgenic plants provides resistance to oxalate and oxalate-producing fungi”. From his virus research, Powell knew that wilt fungi emit oxalic acid to kill chestnut bark and make it easy to digest. Powell realized that if chestnut can produce its own oxalate oxidase (a special protein that can break down oxalate), then it might be able to defend itself. He said: “That was my Eureka moment.”
It turns out that many plants have a gene that enables them to produce oxalate oxidase. From the researcher who gave the speech, Powell got a variant of wheat. Graduate student Linda Polin McGuigan improved the “gene gun” technology to launch genes into chestnut embryos, hoping that it can be inserted into the embryo’s DNA. The gene temporarily stayed in the embryo, but then disappeared. The research team abandoned this method and switched to a bacterium that long ago developed a method of snipping the DNA of other organisms and inserting their genes. In nature, microorganisms add genes that force the host to make bacterial food. Geneticists invaded this bacterium so that it can insert any gene the scientist wants. McGuigan gained the ability to reliably add wheat genes and marker proteins to chestnut embryos. When the protein is irradiated under a microscope, the protein will emit a green light, indicating successful insertion. (The team quickly stopped using marker proteins-no one wanted a tree that could glow.) Maynard called the method “the most elegant thing in the world.”
Over time, Maynard and Powell built a chestnut assembly line, which now extends to the several floors of a magnificent 1960s brick-and-mortar forestry research building, as well as the sparkling new off-campus “Biotech Accelerator” facility. The process first involves selecting embryos that germinate from genetically identical cells (most lab-created embryos don’t do this, so it’s useless to create clones) and insert wheat genes. Embryonic cells, like agar, are a pudding-like substance extracted from algae. In order to turn the embryo into a tree, the researchers added growth hormone. Hundreds of cube-shaped plastic containers with tiny rootless chestnut trees can be accommodated on a shelf under a powerful fluorescent lamp. Finally, the scientists applied rooting hormone, planted their original trees in pots filled with soil, and placed them in a temperature-controlled growth chamber. Not surprisingly, the trees in the laboratory are in poor condition outdoors. Therefore, the researchers paired them with wild trees to produce harder but still resistant specimens for field testing.
Two summers ago, Hannah Pilkey, a graduate student in Powell’s lab, showed me how to do this. She cultivated the fungus that causes bacterial blight in a small plastic petri dish. In this closed form, the pale orange pathogen looks benign and almost beautiful. It is hard to imagine that it is the cause of mass death and destruction.
The giraffe on the ground knelt on the ground, marked the five-millimeter part of a small sapling, made three precise incisions with a scalpel, and smeared blight on the wound. She sealed them with a piece of plastic film. She said: “It’s like a band-aid.” Since this is a non-resistant “control” tree, she expects the orange infection to spread rapidly from the inoculation site and eventually surround the small stems. She showed me some trees that contained wheat genes that she had previously treated. The infection is limited to the incision, such as the thin orange lips close to the small mouth.
In 2013, Maynard and Powell announced their success in Transgenic Research: 109 years after the American chestnut disease was discovered, they created a seemingly self-defense Trees, even if they are attacked by large doses of wilting fungi. In honor of their first and most generous donor, he invested about $250,000, and researchers have been naming trees after him. This is called Darling 58.
The annual meeting of the New York Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation was held in a modest hotel outside New Paltz on a rainy Saturday in October 2018. About 50 people gathered together. This meeting was partly a scientific meeting and partly a chestnut exchange meeting. At the back of a small meeting room, the members exchanged Ziploc bags full of nuts. This meeting was the first time in 28 years that Darling or Maynard did not attend. Health problems kept both of them away. “We have been doing this for so long, and almost every year we keep silent for the dead,” Allen Nichols, the president of the club, told me. Nevertheless, the mood is still optimistic: the genetically modified tree has passed years of arduous safety and efficacy tests.
The members of the chapter gave a detailed introduction to the condition of each big chestnut tree living in New York State. Pilkey and other graduate students introduced how to collect and store pollen, how to grow chestnuts under indoor lights, and how to fill soil with blight infection to extend the life of trees. The cashew chested people, many of whom pollinate and grow their own trees, posed questions to young scientists.
Bowell put on the floor, wearing what appeared to be an unofficial uniform for this chapter: a neckline shirt tucked into jeans. His single-minded pursuit-a thirty-year career organized around Herb Darling’s goal of regaining chestnuts-is rare among academic scientists, who more often conduct research in a five-year funding cycle, and then The promising results are handed over to others for commercialization. Don Leopold, a colleague in Powell’s Environmental Science and Forestry Department, told me: “He is very attentive and disciplined.” “He puts on the curtains. He is not distracted by so many other things. When the research finally made progress, the administrators of the State University of New York (SUNY) contacted him and requested a patent for his tree so that the university could benefit from it, but Powell refused. He said that genetically modified trees are like primitive chestnuts and serve people. Powell’s people are in this room.
But he warned them: After overcoming most of the technical obstacles, genetically modified trees may now face the biggest challenge: the US government. A few weeks ago, Powell submitted a nearly 3,000 page file to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which is responsible for approving genetically modified plants. This begins the agency’s approval process: review the application, solicit public comments, produce an environmental impact statement, solicit public comments again and make a decision. This work may take several years. If there is no decision, the project may come to a halt. (The first public comment period has not yet opened.)
The researchers plan to submit other petitions to the Food and Drug Administration so that it can check the food safety of genetically modified nuts, and the Environmental Protection Agency will review the environmental impact of this tree under the Federal Pesticide Law, which is required for all genetically modified plants of. biological. “This is more complicated than science!” someone in the audience said.
“Yes.” Powell agreed. “Science is interesting. It’s frustrating.” (He later told me: “Supervision by three different agencies is an overkill. It really kills innovation in environmental protection.”)
To prove that their tree is safe, Powell’s team conducted various tests. They fed oxalate oxidase to the pollen of bees. They measured the growth of beneficial fungi in the soil. They left the leaves in the water and investigated their influence on t. No adverse effects were seen in any of the studies-in fact, actually, the performance of the genetically modified diet is better than the leaves of some unmodified trees. Scientists sent the nuts to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other laboratories in Tennessee for analysis, and found no differences with nuts produced by unmodified trees.
Such results may reassure regulators. They will almost certainly not appease activists who oppose GMOs. John Dougherty, a retired scientist from Monsanto, provided consulting services to Powell for free. He called these opponents the “opposition.” For decades, environmental organizations have been warning that moving genes between distantly related species will have unintended consequences, such as creating a “super weed” that surpasses natural plants, or introducing foreign genes that may cause the host The possibility of harmful mutations in the DNA of the species. They also worry that companies use genetic engineering to obtain patents and control organisms.
Currently, Powell said that he did not receive any money directly from industry sources, and he insisted that the donation of funds to the laboratory was “not tied.” However, Brenda Jo McManama, the organizer of an organization called the “Indigenous Environmental Network”, pointed out an agreement in 2010 in which Monsanto gave the Chestnut Foundation and its partner agency New York The chapter authorized two genetic modification patents. (Powell said that industry contributions, including Monsanto, account for less than 4% of its total work capital.) McManama suspects that Monsanto (acquired by Bayer in 2018) is secretly seeking to obtain a patent by supporting what appears to be a future iteration of the tree. Selfless project. “Monsan is all evil,” she said frankly.
Powell said that the patent in the 2010 agreement has expired, and by disclosing the details of his tree in the scientific literature, he has ensured that the tree cannot be patented. But he realized that this would not eliminate all worries. He said, “I know someone would say that you are just a bait for Monsanto.” “What can you do? There is nothing you can do.”
About five years ago, the leaders of the American Chestnut Foundation concluded that they could not achieve their goals by hybridization alone, so they accepted Powell’s genetic engineering program. This decision caused some disagreements. In March 2019, the president of the Massachusetts-Rhode Island Chapter of the Foundation, Lois Breault-Melican, resigned, citing the Global Justice Ecology Project (Global Justice Project), an anti-gene engineering organization based in Buffalo. Justice Ecology Project) argument; her husband Denis Melican also left the board. Dennis told me that the couple were particularly worried that Powell’s chestnuts might prove to be a “Trojan horse”, which cleared the way for other commercial trees to be supercharged through genetic engineering.
Susan Offutt, an agricultural economist, serves as chairman of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee, which conducted research on forest biotechnology in 2018. He pointed out that the government’s regulatory process focuses on the narrow issue of biological risks, and it has almost never considered wider social concerns, such as those raised by anti-GMO activists. “What is the intrinsic value of the forest?” she asked, as an example of a problem, the process did not resolve. “Do forests have their own merits? Do we have a moral obligation to take this into account when making intervention decisions?”
Most of the scientists I have talked to have little reason to worry about Powell’s trees, because the forest has suffered far-reaching damage: logging, mining, development, and endless amounts of insects and diseases that destroy trees. Among them, chestnut wilt is proven to be An opening ceremony. “We are always introducing new complete organisms,” said Gary Lovett, a forest ecologist at the Cary Ecosystem Institute in Millbrook, New York. “The impact of genetically modified chestnuts is much smaller.”
Donald Waller, a forest ecologist who recently retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, went further. He told me: “On the one hand, I outline a little balance between risk and reward. On the other hand, I just keep scratching my head for risks.” This genetically modified tree may pose a threat to the forest. In contrast, “the page below the reward is just overflowing with ink.” He said that a chestnut that resists wilting will ultimately win this embattled forest. People need hope. People need symbols. ”
Powell tends to remain calm, but skeptics of genetic engineering may shake him. He said: “They don’t make sense to me.” “They are not based on science.” When engineers produce better cars or smartphones, no one complains, so he wants to know what’s wrong with better-designed trees. “This is a tool that can help,” Powell said. “Why do you say that we can’t use this tool? We can use a Phillips screwdriver, but not a normal screwdriver, and vice versa?”
In early October 2018, I accompanied Powell to a mild field station south of Syracuse. He hoped that the future of the American chestnut species would grow. The site is almost deserted, and it is one of the few places where trees are allowed to grow. The tall plantations of pine and larch, the product of a long-abandoned research project, tilt to the east, away from the prevailing wind, giving the area a slightly creepy feel.
Researcher Andrew Newhouse at Powell’s laboratory is already working on one of the best trees for scientists, a wild chestnut from southern Virginia. The tree is about 25 feet tall and grows in a randomly arranged chestnut orchard surrounded by a 10-foot high deer fence. The school bag was tied to the ends of some branches of the tree. Newhouse explained that the inner plastic bag was trapped in Darling 58 pollen that scientists applied for in June, while the outer metal mesh bag kept the squirrels away from growing burrs. The entire setup is under strict supervision by the United States Department of Agriculture; before deregulation, pollen or nuts from trees with genetically added genes in the fence or in the researcher’s laboratory must be isolated.
Newhouse manipulated retractable pruning shears on the branches. Pulling with a rope, the blade broke and the bag fell. Newhouse quickly moved to the next bagged branch and repeated the process. Powell collected the fallen bags and placed them in a large plastic garbage bag, just like handling biohazardous materials.
After returning to the laboratory, Newhouse and Hannah Pilkey emptied the bag and quickly extracted brown nuts from the green burrs. They take care not to let the thorns penetrate the skin, which is an occupational hazard in chestnut research. In the past, they liked all precious genetically modified nuts. This time, they finally had a lot: more than 1,000. “We are all doing happy little dances,” Pirkey said.
Later that afternoon, Powell took the chestnuts to Neil Patterson’s office in the lobby. It was Indigenous Peoples Day (Columbus Day), and Patterson, Assistant Director of ESF’s Center for Indigenous Peoples and the Environment, had just returned from a quarter of the campus, where he led an indigenous food demonstration. His two children and niece are playing on the computer in the office. Everyone peeled and ate nuts. “They are still a bit green,” Powell said regretfully.
Powell’s gift is multi-purpose. He is distributing seeds, hoping to use Patterson’s network to plant chestnuts in new areas, where they can receive genetically modified pollen within a few years. He also engaged in dexterous chestnut diplomacy.
When Patterson was hired by ESF in 2014, he learned that Powell was experimenting with genetically engineered trees, which were only a few miles away from the Onondaga Nation Resident Territory. The latter is located in the forest a few miles south of Syracuse. Patterson realized that if the project succeeds, disease resistance genes will eventually enter the land and cross with the remaining chestnuts there, thereby changing the forest that is vital to Onodaga’s identity. He also heard about concerns that are driving activists, including some from indigenous communities, to oppose genetically modified organisms elsewhere. For example, in 2015, the Yurok tribe banned GMO reservations in Northern California because of concerns about the possibility of contamination of its crops and salmon fisheries.
“I realize that this happened to us here; we should at least have a conversation,” Patterson told me. At the 2015 Environmental Protection Agency meeting held by ESF, Powell gave a well-rehearsed speech to members of the indigenous peoples of New York. After the speech, Patterson recalled that several leaders said: “We should plant trees!” Their enthusiasm surprised Patterson. He said: “I didn’t expect it.”
However, later conversations showed that few of them really remember the role the chestnut tree played in its traditional culture. Patterson’s follow-up research told him that at a time when social unrest and ecological destruction were happening at the same time, the US government was implementing an extensive forced demobilization and assimilation plan, and the epidemic had arrived. Like many other things, the local chestnut culture in the area has disappeared. Patterson also found that views on genetic engineering vary widely. Onoda’s lacrosse stick manufacturer Alfie Jacques is eager to make sticks from chestnut wood and supports the project. Others think that the risk is too great and therefore oppose trees.
Patterson understands these two positions. He recently said to me: “It’s like a cell phone and my child.” He pointed out that his child is returning home from school because of the coronavirus pandemic. “One day I went all out; to keep them in touch, they are learning. The next day, like, let us get rid of those things.” But years of dialogue with Powell weakened his skepticism. Not long ago, he learned that the average offspring of 58 Darling trees will not have the introduced genes, which means that the original wild chestnuts will continue to grow in the forest. Patterson said this eliminated a major problem.
During our visit in October, he told me that the reason why he was unable to fully support the GM project was because he did not know whether Powell cared about the people interacting with the tree or the tree. “I don’t know what’s there for him,” Patterson said, tapping his chest. He said that only if the relationship between man and chestnut can be restored, is it necessary to regain this tree.
To this end, he said he plans to use the nuts Powell gave him to make chestnut pudding and oil. He will bring these dishes to the territory of Onondaga and invite people to rediscover their ancient flavors. He said: “I hope so, it’s like greeting an old friend. You just need to get on the bus from where you stopped last time.”
Powell received a $3.2 million gift from the Templeton World Charity Foundation in January, which will allow Powell to move on as he navigates the regulatory agencies and expands his research focus from genetics to the actual reality of the entire landscape repair. If the government gives him a blessing, Powell and scientists from the American Chestnut Foundation will begin to allow it to bloom. Pollen and its extra genes will be blown or brushed onto the waiting containers of other trees, and the fate of genetically modified chestnuts will unfold independently of the controlled experimental environment. Assuming that the gene can be maintained both in the field and in the laboratory, this is uncertain, and it will spread out in the forest-this is an ecological point that scientists desire but radicals fear.
After there is a chestnut tree relaxed, can you buy one? Yes, Newhouse said, that was the plan. Researchers have been asked every week when trees are available.
In the world where Powell, Newhouse and his colleagues live, it is easy to feel that the whole country is waiting for their tree. However, driving a short distance north from the research farm through downtown Syracuse is reminiscent of how profound changes have taken place in the environment and society since the disappearance of American chestnuts. Chestnut Heights Drive is located in a small town north of Syracuse. It is an ordinary residential street with wide driveways, neat lawns, and occasionally small decorative trees dotted with the front yard. . The timber company does not require the revival of chestnuts. The self-sufficient agricultural economy based on chestnuts has completely disappeared. Almost no one extracts soft and sweet nuts from excessively hard burrs. Most people may not even know that there is nothing missing in the forest.
I stopped and had a picnic dinner by Lake Onondaga under the shade of the big white ash tree. The tree was infested by bright green gray borers. I can see the holes made by the insects in the bark. It begins to lose its leaves and may die and collapse a few years later. Just to come here from my home in Maryland, I drove past thousands of dead ash trees, with bare pitchfork branches rising by the side of the road.
In Appalachia, the company has scraped trees from a larger area of Bitlahua to obtain coal below. The heart of the coal country coincides with the heart of the former chestnut country. The American Chestnut Foundation worked with organizations that planted trees on abandoned coal mines, and chestnut trees now grow on thousands of acres of land affected by the disaster. These trees are only part of the hybrids resistant to bacterial blight, but they may become synonymous with a new generation of trees that one day can compete with the ancient forest giants.
Last May, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 414.8 parts per million for the first time. Like other trees, the non-water weight of American chestnuts is about half the carbon. Few things you can grow on a piece of land can absorb carbon from the air faster than a growing chestnut tree. With this in mind, an article published in the Wall Street Journal last year suggested, “Let’s have another chestnut farm.”