A large percentage of the trees in W. Virginia and the Eastern US were American Chestnut. Blight took out most of them back in the early 1900's. However they are not extinct. Shoots keep growing from the remaining stumps but die once they reach 10 or 20 feet. Scientists are now crossing these with Chinese Chestnuts which are blight resistant, and then back crossing succeeding generations until they have all the physical traits of American Chestnuts, but with disease resistance.
They are a few generations along now so hopefully we will see these giants return to their former glory in our lifetime.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/chestnut/qa.php
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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma
Last edited by raymr; 02-11-2010 at 11:35 PM.
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