Regional Industry & News

Retired conservation officer Derek Pritts introduced himself to a group of Warwick High School students and told them they were about to make history.

“We’re going to put some blight-tolerant American chestnut trees in the ground,” Pritts told the students as they ate lunch on a hill above Speedwell Forge Lake. “This will be the first planting in Pennsylvania.”

Derek Pritts, a retired Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission conservation officer, shows Warwick High School students how to prepare the soil to plant blight-tolerant American chestnut trees near Speedwell Forge Lake, in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

Editor's note: This story's headline has been updated to reflect that the Darling54 species is blight-tolerant, and this story is been updated to explain the difference between blight-tolerant and blight-resistant species.

Retired conservation officer Derek Pritts introduced himself to a group of Warwick High School students and told them they were about to make history.

Watching was Lisa Hochreiter, a Warwick agricultural science teacher who 20 years ago planted trees in that same spot not far from Lititz with Pritts and previous pupils. That was part of an ongoing attempt to restore the majestic American chestnut – decimated by a blight introduced to the United States in the early 1900s.

“Most of their trees died,” Pritts told students late last month. “Your trees will not. They will not die from the blight. So it’s very important we do it right.”

Then off they went to plant 13 Darling54 seedlings. That’s the name of a genetically modified chestnut tree that’s been going through testing for years.

Researchers with SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in New York announced in August that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had determined their genetically engineered Darling American chestnut trees are unlikely to pose a threat to other plants.

It’s an important step in trying to build back from the blight that destroyed and estimated 3 to 4 billion American chestnuts, delivering a massive blow to forest ecosystems, said Andrew Newhouse, director of the American Chestnut Research & Restoration Project at SUNY. The towering trees were once a dominant species in states like Pennsylvania.

“Chestnuts were really unique trees. There are no simple replacements,” Newhouse said by phone. “There aren’t other trees that give such good food so reliably to both people and wildlife. They grew so big and were important parts of the forest. So valuable to pollinators.”

The USDA’s recent decision doesn’t mean the tree is ready for the general public. It does mean researchers can start giving seedlings to folks like Pritts,

“We’re especially interested in environmental differences,” Newhouse said. “We have a lot of data from New York … where we’ve been planting under permits for years.”

Also, thus far it’s been researchers handling the trees.

“If we think forward to restoration, it’s not going to be our team that’s doing most of the planting,” he said. “So we want to see how these trees do in different hands. People who are used to planting trees in different ways.”

Derek Pritts, a retired Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission conservation officer, talks to Warwick High School students about planting blight-tolerant American chestnut trees near Speedwell Forge Lake, in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

Brad McClain, a teacher at Warwick High School, second from right, works with students to plant blight-tolerant American chestnut trees at Speedwell Forge in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

Derek Pritts, a retired Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission conservation officer, carries several seedlings for blight-tolerant American chestnut trees to be planted near the lake at Speedwell Forge in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

Sydney Matus, a Warwick High School 11th grader, prepares the soil to plant a blight-tolerant American chestnut seedling near the lake at Speedwell Forge in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

Warwick High School students Sydney Matus, left, and Korielle McMillion, prepare the soil to plant a blight-tolerant American chestnut seedling near the lake at Speedwell Forge in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

Lisa Hochreiter, Warwick High School Ag teacher, left, and Caroline Hoover, a 12th grader at Warwick High School, work together to plant a the seedling for a blight-tolerant American chestnut tree near the lake at Speedwell Forge in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

A ribbon and flag mark the seedling for a blight-tolerant American chestnut tree that was planted near the lake at Speedwell Forge in Elizabeth Township on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.

Pritts showed students his method of layering fertilizer and dirt dug from around white pines for a touch of acidity.

“Our little tree is going to do great,” declared Warwick junior Sydney Matus in an enthusiastic tone that made it easy to tell she’s a cheerleader.

“I’m going to come back one day and say, ‘Kids, I planted that tree,’” she said.

Sophomore Carter Valenti’s mother told folks at her job what her son would be planting.

“My mom works at a retirement home,” Valenti said. “And a lot of the older people there remember the chestnuts.”

Today’s survivors typically don’t compare. They’ll grow, die back, then grow again, Newhouse said.

“The cycle doesn’t really offer a lot of hope for the huge, majestic trees that we see pictures of and hear stories about,” he said.

The plan is for Darling trees to cross pollinate with some of those and start a new popula