Once a dominant keystone species across eastern North America, the American chestnut has all but disappeared. A non-native fungal blight that was accidentally introduced in the late 1800s killed off nearly all of America’s chestnut trees during the early 20th century. The fungus continues to kill and weaken the few surviving chestnuts to this day.
Researchers from the SUNY School of Environmental Science and Forestry have estimated that that our land is home to perhaps one-third of the remaining American chestnuts in New York State. We are working to protect these surviving trees as much as possible and to collaborate with American Chestnut Foundation researchers, who are working to identify American chestnuts that have a genetic resistance to the blight. We also plan to pollinate our trees with pollen from some of the potentially blight-resistant American chestnut trees that researchers have identified elsewhere.
Today, many of North America’s ash tree species are undergoing population collapse—as the American chestnut did a century ago—because of the accidental introduction of the emerald ash borer beetle. We are working to develop a program with ash researchers to propagate white ash trees that have shown resistance to emerald ash borer. We hope to be able to support the eventual recovery of the white ash and other ash species by identifying and propagating trees that can withstand the onslaught of the emerald ash borer.