Who invented hybrid seeds

Simultaneously and independently, Dr. He produced inbreds and hybrid crosses starting with seed of a white dent corn variety that he got from a farm in Kansas. Shull recognized that this could be a means of increasing corn yields and gave talks stating such to American seedsmen in , and — talks that were instrumental in triggering related research and commercial development in the US Midwest.

Both East and Shull recognized the potential value of hybrid vigour in increasing corn yields, but neither had a realistic plan for allowing farmers to benefit, given the very low seed yields of inbreds then available for use as single-cross hybrid seed parents. But no farmers were persuaded to do that. Shull considered his findings to be primarily of academic interest.

Hayes began corn inbreeding while he was an assistant to Dr. East at the Connecticut station and also a graduate student at Harvard University where East was a faculty member. Upon graduation, Hayes took a position at the University of Minnesota in He became a successful public corn breeder and a highly influential early promoter of hybrid corn — with a direct influence on the careers of several budding corn breeders.

Donald Jones, a graduate student and assistant to Dr. This involved a two-step process: four inbreds were crossed in pairs to produce two single-cross hybrids, and these, in turn, served as the seed parents for making double-cross hybrid seed that could be planted by farmers.

Double-cross technology permitted hybrid seed to be produced in quantity at reasonable cost — a huge breakthrough allowing the large-scale use of hybrid corn in North American agriculture. George S. Carter, a Connecticut farmer, used single-cross seed produced at the Connecticut station in to produce the first commercial-scale double-cross hybrid seed in He sold this to other farmers in His double-cross hybrid involved one parent produced using two Burr White inbreds, and the other from two Leaming inbreds.

Thus, George Carter was the first person in the world to sell true hybrid seed corn. Eugene Funk and his family, based at Bloomington Illinois, were large farmers and seedsmen at the beginning of the 20 th century. It continues to be the most important original source for North American corn inbreds today, including various versions which were common at this time — one being an earlier-maturing version, Iodent, developed by Iowa State College, which figures prominently in the genetic background of many modern commercial inbreds.

There is a large amount of older literature on the names and nature of the many open-pollinated OP corn varieties grown in about Discussion on them is beyond the scope of this article, but readers seeking more information are referred to an excellent, extensive review by Dr. It is part of an equally impressive book called Specialist Corns edited by Dr. Arnel Hallauer of Iowa State University.

A non-pay-walled copy of the entire book can be down loaded from here. Funk began corn breeding including some inbreeding in about However, Funk reduced the hybrid work after a few years because of his inability to achieve yield improvements large enough to cover costs. Not discouraged, in , Funk hired James Holbert, a new graduate from Purdue University, as his corn breeder. Holbert met Dr.

Hayes at Minnesota, at time of graduation, and Hayes encourage him to concentrate on inbreeding and hybrid crosses — which he did.

Holbert began inbred development almost immediately upon arrival at Bloomington, starting with the selection of parent-stock ears chosen after the examination of more than one million individual plants. The sale of this product stopped after a few years because the yield boost was insufficient to cover the added cost.

Funk sold its first true double-cross commercial hybrid in This station operated until when it was closed or transferred to the University of Illinois according to one reference and Holbert returned to breeding corn for Funk Brothers. During his 19 years with USDA, Holbert provided free advice and breeding material to many fledgling private corn breeding programs, and developed several important early inbreds and public hybrids.

Merle Jenkins as the breeder. US 13 was an early double-cross hybrid with the pedigree, Wf9 x x Hy x L Funk Brothers was perhaps the most important commercial seed corn company in the central Cornbelt in the marketing of open-pollinated corn varieties and in early hybrid development during the first third of the 20 th century. I finally discovered the explanation in The Founding of Funk Seeds , produced by the company in about not available on the web. Apparently, at the beginning, farm publications in the US Midwest were reluctant to publish company names in their articles, only hybrid numbers.

So Funk included the letters B and G in some of their hybrid names, hoping farmers would associate the letter with the company. No one seems to have recorded why B and G. By chance, G hybrids turned out to be better than B, so B was soon dropped. Eugene Funk died in and Jim Holbert in This meant reduced attention to agronomic traits like higher yield and standability resistance to lodging that were important to farmers.

The reason was that, unlike most other companies, Funk recognized that use of a source of male sterility then widely used in hybrid seed production caused susceptibility to the disease. Funk retained use of hand detasseling in seed production and its sales soared temporarily.

Sales of Funk corn hybrids plummeted. Funk hired two well-respected university corn geneticists, in turn, to lead its corn research program — Dr. But it made no difference; Funk seed sales plunged. Funk became a public company in with the name changed to Funk Seeds International. Ciba-Geigy merged with another chemical company, Sandoz to form Novartis in and a further merger with AstraZeneca led to the creation of Syngenta in ICI later merged its various seed operations to form Zeneca.

And through a subsequent merger with a Swedish firm, Zeneca became part of AstraZeneca. Funk seed corn production and sales in Canada were managed by an associate company in the s. After the sale to Ciba-Geigy in , several of these associates formed their own company that they named Golden Harvest. The Wallace family name is legendary in Iowa starting with the first Henry Wallace who arrived in the state as a Presbyterian minister in , then became farmer, and later editor-in-chief of a publication called the Iowa Homestead.

His son Henry C. In , he became the US Secretary of Agriculture. Plants grown from show-ear seeds yielded no more. The fallacy of superiority of show corn — which had only became a popular feature of fall fairs in the Midwest during the s — impeded corn advancement for at least three decades to follow. Support for the assumed supremacy of show corn was so strong that it affected the judgement of corn industry leaders everywhere.

Varietal yield trials, up until then largely unknown, began in Iowa in about , spreading soon to other states and Ontario, and were effective in finally destroying the myth. If anything, plots grown from seed of show-corn-winning ears often yielded below average. Henry A graduated from Iowa State College in and started corn breeding in a foot-byfoot garden behind the family home in Des Moines in This was soon followed by more extensive breeding — though still tiny by modern standards — on a nearby farm owned by his uncle.

A single-cross hybrid called Copper Cross developed by Wallace — which was a cross between an inbred from the variety Leaming and another from Bloody Butcher known for its dark red kernels — was entered in a newly created regional varietal performance trial.

The hybrid yielded first in and its seed was produced on one acre of land near Altoona Iowa under contract with George Kurtzwell of the Iowa Seed Company.

Copper Cross was not a commercial success because of the low seed yield. Indeed, it was only sold for one year, and Wallace and partners shifted quickly to double-cross hybrids. But, as the first true hybrid corn sold in the US Midwest, the historical fame of Copper Cross is assured.

The corn program moved to newly purchased land at Johnston, north of Des Moines, at about this time. As well as being a visionary and entrepreneur, Henry A.

Henry A became U. Secretary of Agriculture in thus ending his direct involvement with Pioneer. He later served from to as vice-president of the United States under President Roosevelt.

Among other accomplishments as secretary and vice president, Henry A played a critical role in the creation of the Rockefeller-funded corn and wheat improvement program later, CIMMYT in Mexico. Wallace attracted some outstanding people to his team including a farm boy and recent ISC graduate, Raymond Baker, who joined Pioneer in Baker became head of corn research in I had the rare privilege of meeting Baker as well as author Bill Brown, then vice president of research and later to become Pioneer president, when I interviewed for a research position at Johnston in The interview occurred in a nondescript three-story red-brick building on the Johnston property that was then the headquarters for the Pioneer corn research program — a far cry from the expansive Pioneer research campus that exists there today.

My interviewers also included Don Duvick and Forrest Troyer, two outstanding corn breeders and industry leaders, and good contacts in the years to follow. Such a rare opportunity for me even though I did not take the offered job. An entrepreneur extraordinaire, Roswell Garst, persuaded Wallace in to let him produce Pioneer seed at Coon Rapids Iowa, about 50 miles northwest of Des Moines, and sell it in western Iowa and states further west.

Thomas was a minor player in the venture and his share was soon purchased by Garst. This turned out to be a financial gold mine for Garst. Pioneer Canada had a similar beginning with the initial business being that of a farmer and businessman who later sold out to the Johnston-based company. Jones, D. Shull, G. The composition of a field of maize. American Breeders' Association Report 4 , The effects of inbreeding and cross-breeding upon development. Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin Coors, J.

Duvick, D. Morris, M. Mexico , Agricultural Statistics various issues. Russell, W. Genetic improvement of maize yields. Advances in Agronomy 46 , — Genetic contributions to advances in yield of U. Maydica 37 , 69—79 Castleberry, R. Genetic yield improvement of U. Crop Sci. Article Google Scholar. Cardwell, V. Fifty years of Minnesota corn production: sources of yield increase. Agronomy J. Goldburg, R. Genetic diversity in major farm crops on the farm and in reserve. Economic Botany 38 , — Tollenaar, M.

Slafer, G. Download references. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Plant breeding and crop improvement. Reprints and Permissions. Biotechnology in the s: the development of hybrid maize. Nat Rev Genet 2, 69—74 Download citation. From ancient times through the first decades of European agriculture, seeds were hand picked to try to improve the quality of the crops.

Herman Goertzen says when his family picked corn by hand in the s they looked for big ears with lots of big kernels. Then they used those ears as their seeds the next spring. They were searching for the best strains, but in a very unscientific way. The modern hybrid crop industry came from the science of Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel. They both worked in the s, but Mendel's work was never appreciated until after the turn of the century. In the first decades of the 20th century plant scientists began developing new species of crops by crossing one "pure" strain with another.

Leroy Hankel says the first hybrid seeds he bought were very expensive, but they grew into good corn. He used horses to plow and plant crops, and they planted three to four seeds in hills about inches apart.