The United States Department of Agriculture deregulated Darling 54, a genetically modified variety of American chestnut designed to resist the tree-killing chestnut blight. Does this mean that the restoration of this iconic tree to America's forests can soon begin? Maybe, but some researchers have their doubts.
The chestnut blight fungus was identified at the Bronx Zoo in 1904, likely introduced by chestnut trees imported from East Asia. Numbering around 4 billion trees, American chestnuts once dominated North American forests from Ontario to Mississippi. The rapid spread of the blight killed all of the native trees by the 1950s.
