Genetic Engineering

USDA Approves Bioengineered American Chestnut Tree That Could Bring Them Back From Near-Extinction

It sets a precedent for releasing other bioengineered organisms into the wild to repair ecological damage.

Ronald Bailey | 9.2.2026 3:30 PM

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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.

Developed by researchers at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), the Darling 54 has been modified by adding a gene from wheat that confers blight resistance by expressing oxalate oxidase, an........

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