THIS IS THE MOST WONDERFUL THING EVER THROW MONEY AT THEM!
If you are American, you are obligated to support this project. If you are not American, you should support this project because there’s probably something threatening your trees, or will in the future, and this is what will save them too! If you don’t care about plants, then do you know what’s wiping out frogs? ALSO A FUNGUS! That’s the great thing about transgenic solutions, you don’t have to start from scratch every single time.
We’re still finding new ways the American chestnut tree used to help the ecosystem. Current research says they actually created the soil type the rest of the forest relies on, their leaves fed ponds without clouding the water, and their wood lasts for basically forever. They are magic and they’ve been gone for a hundred years and now we can get them back!
Although I have to question the marketing bit of it. To paraphrase my professor (I just contacted him), some people might be turned off by the name on wall thing, and $100 planting nonblight nuts in hopes it will pollinate the next generation of blight resistant trees? Very slim chances there. But it’s a start.
I think the subtext was “here are some regular chestnuts, please make your mistakes with them before we give you the ultra-rare transgenic ones”. It does seem that $100 dollars gets you on the list for when the transgenic seeds are ready, you’re just behind the people who shelled out $300+ for the membership.
Nah we’re pretty much screwed there. Like all American environmental accomplishments, this was the work of a few individuals doing something the majority disapproved of. The official chestnut plan was backcrossing to Chinese despite that being a terrible idea even if it had worked, and as with all transgenic anythings, there’s a solid core of people screaming that we have no idea what these chestnuts are capable of and how many they’ll murder when they get out.
I have high hopes for the tree’s return, but it’s going to be because it won’t take too many people to spread the tree around.
Nevertheless, the American chestnut tree returning to your shores is brilliant news, and I congratulate whoever was responsible.
Then you need to brush up on your ecology. What happens when land omnivores that can’t get their calories from the nuts? When land carnivores can’t find enough meat because the squirrels and mice have starved? What happens when humans go hungry?
This particular tree was also crucial to healthy waterways due to the nature of its leaves compared to other plants.
So, you know…you might want to get punching.