American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for conservationists

Re:American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail'... by nebul on Saturday August 27, 2022 @06:52PM (#32624047)

The hard thing with taste is that it's usually the sum of many quantitative traits, each one being governed by several genes which can be located on different chromosomes, as seen in tomato[1]. Transferring enough of them into the modern genome through backcross would probably require a crazy amount of generations... or a crazy amount of luck :)

[1] https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erf058

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Re:American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail'... by robwwilliams on Saturday August 27, 2022 @08:42PM (#32624664)

You would need to map the relevant loci and then use a speed congenic selection strategy. Done in mice easily. Mapping the loci modulating traits like disease resistance or taste is the hard part.

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Re:American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail'... by DuskStar on Saturday August 27, 2022 @07:50PM (#32624401)

Or, you know, CRISPR.

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Re:American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail'... by robbiep on Saturday August 27, 2022 @09:57PM (#32625048)

CRISPR as currently used is not functionally capable of cutting and pasting large swaths of the genome, it is for small specific edits

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