Most of us have never seen a chestnut tree, but for centuries before a fungus almost wiped them out, they stood as the canopies of American forests from Maine to Mississippi. Then around 1904, workers at the Bronx Zoo noticed a festering fungus that had the effect of sapping the tree of its nutrients. And literally within a generation millions of trees died.
Enter SUNY and the Chestnut Restoration Project. Certain trees have a genetically modified pollen put onto the flowers and then are tied up in zip bags. The goal is to create a fungus resistant tree. It’s called a century project for good reason because it will take a century to revive the chestnut forest. It’s called investing in the future.
Before the Darling 58 chestnut can be distributed across the country, three federal agencies, the EPA, FDA, and USDA, each with its own separate concern, must review this experiment. And the SUNY students at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry continue trying to find a way to bring back the chestnut.
Prayer for the Day
Listening for your voice in the quiet of the early morning,
We must learn to hear it in the wind through the trees;
Straining to open ourselves to your Spirit, O God,
We attend to the stillness and silence.
Break into our lives, Holy One, waking us to the day,
And the magnificence of your creation.
In the name of the One who accompanies us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
If you depend on where the chestnuts are going to be and where the deer are, you have to be attuned to the outside world.
- Howard Rheingold, American writer and social critic
Our chestnut tree is in full bloom. It’s covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year.
- Anne Frank, from the Diary, May 13, 1944
The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.
In old age they still produce fruit, they are always green and full of sap,
Showing that the Lord is upright and is my rock,
And there is no unrighteousness in the Lord.
Psalm 92: 12-15