What Happened To The American Chestnut Tree?

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2019

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the early 20th century, a blight fungus wiped out most of the 4 billion American chestnut trees on the eastern seaboard. The loss was ecologically devastating. Pod reporter Emily Kwong tells us how scientists are trying to resurrect the American chestnut tree — and recent controversy over a plan to plant genetically modified chestnuts in the wild.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you could put a dollar value on shortwave, what would it be?
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0:16.2	Tell us how much we need to you by going to donate.NPR.org slash short. Thank you so much.
0:22.6	And here's the show.
0:24.7	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:29.8	Hey everybody. Maddie Sifai here with shortwave reporter Emily Quang.
0:32.7	Hey, Maddie. Hey, Quang.
0:34.2	You've been delving into the mystery of what happened to one of the most significant
0:38.0	trees in the United States, the American chestnut.
0:41.2	Yes, the Quang family is very into chestnuts.
0:45.4	Every Christmas season, we buy them roasted on the streets of New York.
0:49.0	My dad folds them into his stuffing.
0:51.2	And of course, you honestly can't go anywhere this time of year without hearing
0:55.0	Nat King Cole sing about them. You know what I'm talking about. I do.
1:03.4	It just sets the mood, right? You know what time it is.
1:06.8	But Maddie, it took years of eating chestnuts, listening to this song,
1:11.4	to ask myself, why haven't I ever seen a chestnut tree in the United States?
1:16.6	Have you ever wondered that?
1:18.2	Oh, every day, Quang.
1:19.6	No, really. Have you ever wondered that?
1:21.4	No, I haven't.
	...

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