For Immediate Release 27 August 2026
Response to USDA Deregulation of Failed GMO Chestnut
New York–Global Justice Ecology Project released the following statement today regarding the announcement by the USDA of the decision to deregulate the genetically engineered (GE) Darling 54 American chestnut tree.
“Given the current trend toward the disregard of science and concern for the environment by US environmental agencies, the USDA decision to deregulate the GE American chestnut is not a surprise. But it is disappointing to those who care about forest health and the return of the wild American chestnut.
“This decision marks the beginning of an unprecedented, dangerous and irreversible experiment with our wild forests. Never before has a GE plant been released into the wild with the intent to contaminate its natural relatives with GE traits.
“This decision was made despite the fact that three years after the submission of the deregulation petition, the GE chestnut was revealed to be rife with problems including high rates of mortality and loss of blight resistance. It was subsequently discovered that researchers had been testing the wrong tree for seven years.
“These findings led the major partner in the research, the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) to drop their support for the deregulation of the GE chestnut in late-2023. TACF details these problems on their website concluding:
” ‘…the disappointing performance of the D54 trees in the field and the observed lethal homozygosity, have led TACF to conclude that this product should not be distributed or propagated beyond permitted sites. TACF believes these genetic issues should not be proliferated into current or future restoration or commercial chestnut populations.’ (see full statement and photographs below)
“The USDA decision to ignore these problems and concerns and allow the release of the D54 into the wild is both reckless and dangerous.
“The USDA is bending to the interests of companies like SilvaBio seeking to profit from the tragic loss of American chestnut trees, despite the fact that releasing these GE trees into our forests will directly threaten the ability of the wild American chestnut to return.
“Wild American chestnuts that survived the blight have disease resistance that they pass on to their offspring. In some regions, wild American chestnuts are already making a return. Yet SilvaBio is willing to risk the future of these wild trees for short-sighted profits from the mass-sale of their defective D54 chestnuts.
“Decades of work to bring back the wild American chestnut by organizations such as the American Chestnut Cooperators’ Foundation, renowned biologist Bernd Heinrich and many others is callously disregarded and irreparably damaged by this decision by the USDA that disregards real science surrounding the flaws of the OXO genetic insertion, human error, and abysmal field results of the tree.”
CONTACT: Steve Taylor, Media Coordinator
About Global Justice Ecology Project:
Since 2003, Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP) has worked to protect forests around the world and defend the rights and territories of forest-dependent communities and Indigenous Peoples on whose territories 80% of the world’s biodiversity is found. The founded the Campaign to STOP GE Trees in 2003.
Notes to Editors
From the American Chestnut Foundation website:
Why TACF Withdrew Support for the Darling Line
Throughout 2023, TACF and its partners observed disappointing performance results from broad-scale field and greenhouse tests of advanced generations of Darling trees across several geographic locations. As discussed in the September 15, 2023 episode of TACF’s Chestnut Chat webinar series (Darling 58 Update), analysis indicated striking variability in Darling trees’ blight tolerance, significant losses in growth competitiveness, reduction in overall fitness including stunted growth, leaf browning and curling, and increased mortality. View an outline of the body of evidence concerning Darling’s performance issues on the Darling 58 Performance page.
In Darling 54, the OxO gene has been inserted into a coding region, causing a deletion of 1,069 base pairs in a salinity tolerance gene called SAL1. It has since been shown that there is only a single occurrence of this gene in the American chestnut genome (there are no backup copies). Research has also indicated that the homozygous state of Darling 54 (when an individual plant inherits a copy of the OxO gene from both parents, which occurs in 25% of offspring) is largely lethal, and that a great majority of homozygous offspring die in the embryonic stage.
The fact that the 35S OxO construct in D54 interrupts a known gene, and has caused a large deletion of that gene, combined with the disappointing performance of the D54 trees in the field and the observed lethal homozygosity, have led TACF to conclude that this product should not be distributed or propagated beyond permitted sites. TACF believes these genetic issues should not be proliferated into current or future restoration or commercial chestnut populations.
In addition to those baseline scientific concerns, TACF is also concerned that further production or development of D54 would decrease public acceptance of the use of biotechnology in forest health and restoration efforts. Knowingly producing and proliferating trees with genetic issues, especially after establishing that these were at least partially the result of an early error, is bound to erode public trust in both the process and the producers of such a product.
