Richard Ha writes:
Dr. Michael Shintaku shared this article with me. It’s about a biotech solution to a blight that was threatening the American chestnut.
American chestnut set for genetically modified revival
16:30 30 May 2014 by Andy Coghlan
The near-extinct American chestnut looks set to make a comeback. Genetically modified trees, which are resistant to a deadly fungus that has decimated the species, have produced the first resistant chestnuts. From these seeds, countless resistant trees could be grown in the wild.
An estimated 4 billion American chestnut trees (Castanea dentata) once covered the US, accounting for a quarter of all US hardwood trees. But in around 1900, a lethal fungus called Cryphonectria parasitica was accidentally imported in chestnut trees from Asia, and by the 1950s it had almost completely wiped out the American chestnut….
Hopefully, here in Hawai‘i we can be prepared in case a fungus starts killing off all our ‘ohi‘a trees.
The rose apple trees in East Hawai‘i are currently all dying from a fungus; have you noticed? The dying trees are everywhere.
All the mai'a maoli and popoulu cooking bananas, which came from the south way back when with the Polynesian settlers, are gone now, because they got Fusarium Wilt.
Don't we want to have tools that will help us preserve our heritage and other valuable plants?