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The Ghost Tree: Bringing Back the American Chestnut

Season 2 Episode 6 | 8m 15s

Billions of American chestnut trees once shaped life in Appalachia, but a foreign fungus erased them in a matter of decades. Today, only sickly sprouts remain — ghosts of a vanished ecosystem. Sara Fern Fitzsimmons and The American Chestnut Foundation are racing to breed resistance and restore the tree's ecological role. It’s slow, painstaking work — but it may hold the key to revival.

Extras
Celebrate the life and career of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver.
Preview: 250 Years of Americana
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An Iowa farm thrives as one of the state’s few Black-owned farms.
A Vermont couple finds new ways to better protect their land from drought and floods.
A Georgia farm keeps the produce coming year-round by planting and harvesting in different locations
See how college students are turning soybeans into new products like baby wipes.
A California farmer shares easy-to-grow mushrooms with giftable box kits.
A Minnesota farm family plants a new kind of wheat that restores the soil and saves water.
A Montana rancher honors his ancestors, and Mother Earth, by restoring native grasses to his land.
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