Reintroducing American Chestnut trees in the wild!

Images of vendors selling chestnuts in Manhattan, USA are common, but they are European chestnuts. The American chestnut that once dominated the forests of Eastern United States from Maine to Georgia was virtually wiped out by a disease that was accidentally introduced from Asia. Luckily, in July 2015, a 115-foot tree, the tallest chestnut tree known in North America, was spotted from the air, surrounded by a grove of equally tall pine trees, recognised from its crown of white flowers. Scientists now plan to preserve the DNA from this tree in a living gene bank as part of a complex breeding program by the American Chestnut Foundation to develop a robust chestnut tree that is resistant to fungus, and help restore the chestnut to its historic range.”