Genetically engineered American Chestnut

Or they wisely do not trust the ethics of the companies & the competence of the regulators who are supposed to be looking out for our health, denying anything until testing PROVES it safe for consumption.

 

This project has been underway for many year and I have been following it for a few. The transgenic element that was added codes for an enzyme that is common in other plants. Does not kill chestnut blight fungus but inactivates a fungal toxin that nixes chestnut.

That enzyme is not present in all plants. One can imagine it spreading further (that's what horizontal gene transfer is), but it is not in same category as herbicide resistance, which folks want in crops but absolutely not in weeds.

Many other aspects of chestnut life cycle have already been examined with this transgenic. If I had to pick a most benign example with an excellent upside, this would be it.

Certainly it could also be viewed as thin edge of wedge. Camel's nose in tent. If one GMO is OK well then why not XYZ others? Correct way to handle these is case by case.

 

Hopefully they test the fruit for toxicity too.

 

That one is not on the list of tests I know, and it's a reasonable thought. The new enzyme (oxalate oxidase) would be denatured by heat (chestnuts roasting...) just like other enzymes.

I'd eat 'em, but mine is a special case. In China there is a that-fungus-resistant chestnut tree so I get to eat those little roasties any time.

 

So we can blame your ancestors for killing our chestnuts?

 

With a broad enough definition of ancestors maybe.

The bad fungus apparently arrived in US from Japan but is present in resistant chestnuts in China as well. Disease spread from about 1904 (in New York City zoo) to 1950s and is pretty much the textbook classic blowout.

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There has also been much work on traditional genetic crosses with the Chinese Castanea. It would probably work nearly as well as this gene insertion but would require more time.

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None of the 'Asians' I've seen approach size of those classic American supertrees. Get to a certain size and desires to make tables out of big wooden slabs get irresistible.

 

i love chestnuts, it goes back to my childhood. there were few trees, and we scrambled to scoop up a few each year.
we recently found one on the campus at wellesley college, and our grandson has a ball with them. no one else seems to care.

i wanted to plant one, but they are hard to come by. same with the flowering chestnut.

i saw one in a ny nursery, but it looked like growing and producing chestnuts is a difficult labor of love.

 

Three resistant American chestnuts were planted at work a few years ago. They were GMOed the old fashion way, and are 1/13th to 1/16th Chinese.

My objection is over US trademark laws and their weaponization.

Some abilities transferring to undesirable plants is a concern. I believe there are genetic tactics, like linking the resistance gene to a 'kill' one that prevents the modified organism from breeding. But that goes against the weaponization I mentioned before.

I wonder how Europe and other markets that banned GMO handle Canola oil. It is rapeseed without the toxic compound. Some strains were made by what laws would call GMO, but the first ones, which are still in use, came about by classic cross breeding. It is a good example for case by case approach. Canola plants are less hardy than their rapeseed ancestors. More things can eat it, so their survival is less likely ina wild setting.

Since one of the donators for the gene is wheat, the compound has received a lot of scrutiny all ready.
oxalate oxidase - Google Search

 

just saw this article below. We need to be Careful with this genetics stuff, as well as our attempts to "restore" nature. We don't know enough to do it right.

Hand-Reared Monarch Butterflies Don't Migrate - The Atlantic

 

This has little, or nothing to do with genetics.
"For example, she and her colleagues also collected wild-monarch eggs and raised them indoors, under autumnlike temperatures and lighting schedules, much as legions of hobbyist breeders do. These insects didn’t orient south either."

 

I was speaking more toward attempts to restore nature, or improve it, genetics possibly being a piece to that puzzle.

 

Enjoyed fresh roasted chestnuts in Europe last Fall-delicious!
I would support trying to restore the American Chestnut, via either traditional cross-breeding (some isolated examples have survived in US) or GMOing.

 

i have never eaten a chestnut

 

More words on gene-insert version:

New genetically engineered American chestnut will help restore the decimated, iconic tree

An older story on the back-crossed version, which seems not to have gone 'to the field' as fast as anticipated:

Chestnut trees to spread across landscape again, says Purdue scientist

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This is a fast-growing species with wood relatively resistant to decay. A few are perplexed by that combo. Fortunately we are few in number

 

as a wood worker, i am one who is perplexed

 

I wanted to plant a pair of the new improved American chestnuts, but then I realized people park under where they would grow. Oh, well...

 

Chestnut wood density is 0.48. Basically this means lots of air. It is said to be high in tannins (though I have not seen data) and this would make it not yummy.

Thus, fungus that kills living wood is unimpressed by tannins. That's a head scratcher.

Speaking of those, reread posts 8 and 16, both posted under same name. ???