Ecologists are using the very disease that decimated American elms to try to bring the iconic trees back.
Dutch elm disease killed tens of millions of elm trees over the last century.
A group of scientists with the Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy Vermont have spent the summer injecting six-thousand young elm trees with Dutch elm disease spores to test their resistance.
The survivors will be sent to a breeding program that aims to grow disease-tolerant elm trees for reforestation programs.
The young elms were bred from a group of a few dozen surviving trees in the Northeast.
Dutch elm disease is a fungus spread by bark beetles that stops trees from being able to drink water and starving them.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada says scientists are looking at ways to protect several species of trees that have been hit by disease noting that healthy trees and forests are needed to combat climate change.
Healthy trees are important for clean air, clean water, their natural ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and for providing nutrition and shelter for birds and animals.
(With files from the Canadian Press)
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