On this week's show, we'll be talking to Allen Nichols, President of the recently created American Chestnut Restoration (ACR). Allen was previously the President of the NYS Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation (NY-TACF).
In December of '23, the national TACF decided to discontinue its support of SUNY College of Enviornmental Science & Forestry's Darling 54/58 transgenic chestnut program; A project heavily supported by NY-TACF. This disagreement ended in the termination of the NY Chapter, going back to 1990 and the creation of the ACR. We'll get Allen's opinion on how this occurred and where the transgenic chestnuts stand.
Allen Nichol's first exposure to American chestnut was growing up in the 1950s above the Pepacton Reservoir when his father and brother returned from hunting with some burs. At that time many believed there would be some survivors of the chestnut blight. Allen saw his first American chestnuts when his father pointed out the remains of dead trees as a boy. He was aware of the resprouts that kept coming up and then dying back from the blight. As a teenager, he witnessed the death of all the great American elms on his farm, which gave him a vision of what must have happened when the chestnut blight killed all the chestnuts 50+ years earlier.
Allen believes the death of the ash today is probably giving the next generation a glimpse of what has happened in the past.
