From left to right, the trees are a blight-susceptible wild-type American chestnut (C. dentata) called Ellis 1, a blight-resistant Chinese chestnut (C. mollissima) tree called 'Qing,' and two ...

Over the last 36 years, volunteers and TACF partners have been breeding blight-resistant Chinese chestnut trees with American chestnuts to create hybrids. So far, the program has resulted in ...

No, Darling American chestnuts are not hybrids. Hybrid trees have a blended genome from two related species, such as American chestnut and Chinese chestnut. In contrast, Darling trees retain all of ...

While many trees in the southern range were killed by Phytophthora root rot (PRR), the chestnut blight leaves ... been crossing blight and PRR-resistant Chinese chestnuts with the American type.

Still, American chestnut trees are better suited for timber ... in genetics but with the fungus-fighting traits of the Chinese type. Fitzsimmons said breeders have learned just how difficult ...