Angel Simon/Shutterstock not an agricultural crop - it's a wild tree that needs our help." While the young trees grow, Powell and his team continue their research. They have developed a field test that indicates, within four hours, which nuts contain the blight resistance gene and which do not. They are collecting data about whether leaf litter from transgenic American chestnuts on the forest floor affects the germination rate of other tree species and whether leaf litter in streams had any adverse effect on aquatic insects. They are also studying whether the transgenic trees have any negative impact on the beneficial mycorrhizal fungi that typically colonize the root system of host plants. "We've done enough research to know that the transgenic trees have no detrimental effects on leaf litter, insects or fungi," Powell says. "But we're doing further studies to build a body of knowledge that shows these trees will not harm the environment in any way." ESF is speeding up the production of transgenic trees at a recently launched Tissue Culture Production Lab at the Biotech Accelerator in Syracuse. There, young plants grown from tissue cultures are nurtured until they can be transplanted and eventually moved outdoors as the seed orchard expands over the next two years. The next long-term goal is to obtain funding for a "century study" that would allow researchers to establish a couple 120-acre research sites to conduct a longterm comparison between wildtype, transgenic, back-crossed and hybrid American chestnuts. Powell expects the regulatory process will be complete before any of those trees began to pollinate and reproduce on their own. A Source: SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Fall 2017 * WOODLAND 15