 Time will tell if the progeny of these best chestnuts exhibit durable blight resistance in different stress environments.Backcrossing as a treatment for blight was first proposed by Charles R. Burnham of the University of Minnesota in the 1970s.Burnham, a professor emeritus in agronomy and plant genetics who was considered one of the pioneers of maize genetics, realized that experiments conducted by the USDA to cross-breed American chestnuts with European and Asian chestnuts erroneously assumed that a large number of genes were responsible for blight resistance, while it is currently believed the number of responsible genes is low.