The Nature Conservancy of Vermont is doing its part to help grow new American Elm trees.

The elm tree is one of the most important flood plain species in New England. It has been largely wiped out due to Dutch Elm Disease, a fungus spread through bark beetles. The Nature Conservancy of Vermont has bred the American Elm with other trees that can tolerate the deadly fungus in hopes of wiping out the disease. Currently there are over 5,000 experimental trees in the ground.

"They're all individually tagged and mapped so we'll be able to backtrack through our records to find out which parents and which crosses were most successful, and we'll have that nice genetic population to go forward with planting and restoration work," said Gus Goodwin of the Nature Conservancy.

The group hopes to plant one to 2,000 more experimental trees this spring.