Word is percolating online that Trump’s mangled/decimated US Department of Agriculture might go ahead approve a genetically modified variant of the American chestnut tree, a wonderful species that as you probably know was wiped out by fungus.
This is the latest twist in a long complicated story – you can read details in my February 2024 post here – that at one point saw the GMO tree as a promising way to restore the giant to our forests, only to have it derailed because the test samples had been mislabeled and we didn’t actually have good data.
I don’t know what to think if this new rumor is true. I was very, very hopeful for the GMO tree, which was genetically modified in ways that seem to have sidestepped any GMO problems, and was crushed when the problems arose. Trump’s version of government doesn’t care about data, science or information so I could see it going ahead and OK’ing the tree for release into the wild without caring about whether it’s good or bad.
Return to the Concord Monitor