Project: Butternut Search and Rescue
Butternut Trees produce a delicious nut and have a native range that covers most of the north eastern USA.
However, a foreign fungus has already killed off over 80% of the native population. In addition, the foreign Japanese Walnut, which is resistant to the fungus, hybridizes with our native species and continues to dilute our native population. These factors combined with climate change and habitat fragmentation means that these trees need our help to maintain their pure populations in our region.
This project aims to find all remaining pure trees in DE and propagate enough to plant orchards for future research and propagation.
Project: Red Mulberry in a Haystack
The Red Mulberry is our native (delicious) mulberry.
However, this species has been almost completely eliminated from the Delaware Valley due to forced hybridization with the foreign White Mulberry.
The White Mulberry is an invasive species that (unlike it’s name) also produces similar looking red mulberries. However, foreign tree and it’s hybrids out competes our native species. On top of that, White Mulberries were once MANDATED by state governments to be planted in private homes to support a growing silk industry that would ultimately fail, and at the same time decimate the native populations of Red Mulberry.
Project: TNOTF American Chestnut GCO
The American Chestnut is probably the most famous functionally extinct tree in our country.
Many are aware of the foreign Chestnut Blight brought over from Asia that has brought this tree to near extinction.
However, most don’t know that we actually already had killed off significant numbers with the introduction of Black Root Rot a hundred years earlier.
We (humans) also then decided to bring in foreign gall wasps, which continues to destroy trees where the Blight and Root Rot don’t.
Throw in climate change, habitat fragmentation, and invasive species in the mix, and yes - they need our help too.