Efforts to save the American Chestnut Tree will be the subject of an upcoming talk as part of the Colloquium Lectures Series at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
Dr. William A. Powell, a professor in the Department of Environmental Forest Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, will discuss the topic Tuesday, April 4 at 2 p.m. at the center’s Pearl Young Theater. Powell will give a similar talk as part of the Sigma Series Lectures the same day at 7:30 p.m. at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, Virginia.
The American chestnut blight is the classic example of what happens when forests succumb to exotic pests and pathogens. Because of its environmental, economic and social importance, many tools have been brought to bear on the American chestnut blight problem. There are efforts focused on enhancing blight resistance by adding only a couple genes to the approximately 38,000 gene pairs in the chestnut genome. The most promising gene to date, called oxalate oxidase (OxO), comes from bread wheat.
According to chestnut leaf and small stem assays that predict the level of blight resistance, this OxO has raised resistance levels in American chestnut to at least as high as those found in the blight-resistant Chinese chestnut. The next step is to have the trees reviewed by the USDA, EPA and FDA. Once approved, these blight-resistant American chestnut trees can be used to rescue the genetic diversity in the remnant, surviving population of American chestnut and be an additional tool for the restoration of this important keystone tree.
In addition to being a professor, Powell is the director of the Council on Biotechnology in Forestry, director of the American Chestnut Research and Restoration Program and the Roosevelt Wild Life Station scientist-in-residence. He has also worked with American elm and hybrid poplar. Powell currently has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and one patent.
For more information about the NASA Langley Colloquium and Sigma Series Lectures, visit:
Eric Gillard
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, Virginia 23681
eric.s.gillard@nasa.gov
757-864-7423
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