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Borlaug Wheat Mexico
When Borlaug began his work
in Mexico,
there were no Mexican agricultural scientists with an advanced degree in the
country. There were also no graduate schools with agricultural programs in Latin
America. One mission of the OEE was to train Mexican scientists to
address the challenges of food production in Mexico. In
the absence of an extension program, the scientists would take the new
technologies to farmers so that they could be tested, modified, and
distributed.
Stem Rust and Shuttle
Breeding
One of the first problems
Borlaug addressed in Mexico was
that of stem rust. Stem rust is caused by a fungus, Puccinia graminis. Spores
of the fungus travel through the air and land on wheat plants where they
cause brown lesions. Nutrients that the grain would use are instead taken up
by the fungus, and the fungus can weaken the plant leading to breakage,
desiccation, and shriveling.
Three epidemics of
stem rust from 1939-1941 wiped out wheat in the Yaqui valley of Mexico. An experiment
station had previously been constructed in the valley, but when Borlaug
arrived in 1945 as part of OEE, it was in shambles. Despite the poor state of
the station, he slept and worked there depending on the support of the local
farmers who would loan equipment and help as needed.
Breeding rust-resistant
varieties of wheat was a slow process taking up to 10 or 12 years. To speed
up the process and take advantage of both of Mexico’s
growing seasons, Borlaug suggested a new technique called shuttle breeding.
He wanted to grow wheat in the cooler central highlands near Mexico
City in the summer and then shuttle selected
plants to the warmer northwestern Yaqui valley during the winter for a second
round of breeding and selection. The different latitudes, elevations, and
climates of these two locations allowed Borlaug and his colleagues to breed
and select plants twice in one year.
Borlaug faced criticism for
his idea of shuttle breeding, even from others at OEE. A widely held belief
at the time was that seeds needed to rest after harvesting in order to store
energy before being planted again. Also, shuttle breeding would mean double
the work each year—and double the costs.
Despite the resistance,
Borlaug forged ahead with his breeding plans. Not only did the wheat grow in
both locations allowing the breeding to progress more quickly, but there was
an unexpected side effect. Wheat that was grown during shorter days in the
north was then taken south when the days were longer. Not only were the
selected plants adapted to different climates, but they were adapted to a
wide range of day lengths. This achievement meant that wheat grown in Mexico
would tolerate day lengths at different latitudes and could be cultivated in
various regions of the world.
The success of shuttle
breeding, a technique still practiced today, allowed Borlaug and his
colleagues to make great progress in his first 10 years in Mexico.
They made thousands of wheat crosses in that time, and through those efforts,
they discovered a gene called Stem Rust 31, or Sr31. The gene provided
protection against stem rust when present in wheat, and by another stroke of
luck, it also increased yields. Farmers learned of the success of the Sr31
seeds and enthusiastically adopted them, drastically reducing the threat of
stem rust.
Lodging and Semi-Dwarf Wheat
Varieties
In addition to stem rust, Borlaug and his
colleagues found themselves facing another problem at the time. During World
War II, nitrate was produced in large volumes for use in explosives. With the
war over, the factories switched to making nitrogen fertilizer for
agricultural use. Increases in fertilizer use led to better crop growth and
higher grain yields. But along with increased yields came heavier heads of
grain and a problem for wheat—lodging.
Lodging occurs when stalks
collapse under the weight of the grain and fall over. This can ruin the crop
and lead to large reductions in yield. To prevent lodging, Borlaug wanted to
breed the tall, thin stalks common in Mexico with
shorter wheat stalks. In the early 1950s, he received a dwarf variety called
Norin 10 from Orville Vogel, a researcher with the USDA-ARS at Washington State University. It
was with that genetic material that Borlaug began to produce stronger,
higher-yielding Mexican varieties.
The new Mexican semi-dwarf
varieties had multiple benefits. The shorter wheat produced stronger stalks
and two to three times more grain than standard varieties. Also, Borlaug bred
the shorter varieties with the stem rust-resistant wheat he had produced
earlier, creating semi-dwarf wheat that was resistant to the disease and
could be grown in a range of climates.
These new varieties greatly
changed the picture of wheat production in Mexico. By
1963, 95% of the wheat grown in the country came from Borlaug’s breeding
programs. Around 75 varieties had been created. The wheat harvest that year
was six times larger than the harvest just 19 years earlier when Borlaug had
arrived in Mexico.
Also in 1963, CIMMYT (The
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) was
established. CIMMYT remained under the jurisdiction of the Mexican government
at that time, but as recognition of the organization grew, it became clear
that additional funding and reorganization was necessary. In 1966, CIMMYT
became a non-profit institution and was formally launched.
A few years later, the CGIAR
Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers was founded to
further support and disseminate agricultural research around the world.
CIMMYT was one of the first research centers to be supported through CGIAR
and is one of 15 such centers today.
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It seems to me that Borlaug's first quarter century of
discoveries, prior to his nobel prize,
corresponded to an era when best for world knowhow on ending hunger
was disseminated freely. Whats desperately needed in 2015 is a mooc with one
week on each food crop which starts by cataloguing which crop science is
globally edited by POP professionals. Put another way look at the missed
opportunity of not organising feedthefuture.gov around a khan academy style
dashboard of POP crop science
In parallel, where POP alumni of Borlaug have curated
databases of crop science matched to combinatorial local profiles that poor
farmers face locally, turn all the information into mobile apps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJXqG40WH68
With Bono's ONE's pop stars massively campaigning that
investing 10% of developing nations budget o agriculture is best way to end
poverty, time is now to ensure we open source POP knowhow not big vested
interests who control global food chains
Additional Commentary Success
and Criticism
The spread of practices and
seeds developed by Borlaug was driven by his hard work, but also by his
ability to engage and interest all of the stakeholders from farmers and
students to policy-makers and administrators.
“He was good at something
most scientists aren’t good at—public relations,” explains ASA and SSSA
Fellow Ed Runge, professor at Texas A&M University. “We
all need to make connections, and I think Borlaug was superb at that. He
could talk to a farmer. He could talk to Indira Gandhi [the third Prime
Minister of India]. He could talk to anybody.”
Education was very important
to Borlaug. Both in Mexico and
as he traveled on consulting trips, he recognized the shortage of trained
people throughout the world as well as the untapped potential of people
willing to learn. While scientists were doing good work, they rarely left the
laboratories to interact with the farmers or teach others. One way in which
Borlaug addressed the need for education was by establishing a training
program in Mexico for
recently graduated agricultural students.
He also continually pushed
for better support for farmers, both through government funding and training.
Later in his life when he was involved with SAA, he worked to bring simple
technologies that many take for granted, such as irrigation and fertilizers,
to poorer farmers in Africa.
“Dr. Borlaug was very
practical. He understood what small-holder farmers needed and fought for them
to be provided every tool available,” says Robert Fraley, Executive Vice
President and Chief Technology Officer at Monsanto. “He believed in training
the next generation and engaging young people.”
In the midst of great
success, the Green Revolution also had its critics. By using more fertilizers
and water and cultivating a single crop, some believed that Borlaug’s
techniques were damaging the environment, depleting water and soil resources,
and hindering biodiversity.
While he acknowledged the
critiques, Borlaug maintained that they were smaller concerns than the
starvation and political unrest facing many hungry nations. He would also
note that thousands of acres of land had been saved from agricultural
development through the increased yields of the new varieties. He continually
pushed for improved practices that would maximize water use and conserve soil
while maintaining the high yields necessary to feed the population.
Beyond stem rust,
agricultural researchers still face many issues today. They strive to find
ways to feed the world while protecting the earth and its resources. For many
in the field, Borlaug’s work and words were a challenge to continue the fight
against hunger and to do so in a way that would incorporate and address as
many aspects of food production as possible.
“The greatest thing he did
for the field of agronomy was to begin to show people that they had to think
about multiple parts of the system,” says ASA, CSSA, and SSSA Fellow Jerry
Hatfield, lab director at the USDA-ARS. “If you think about what he did in
the Green Revolution, it wasn’t about genetics, and it wasn’t about
fertility, and it wasn’t about water. It was about all of those different
things together.”
So 100 years after he was born, and with the world population
continuing to grow, Borlaug’s legacy still resonates. He continues to call us
all to action with words he spoke in 1970 at his Nobel Lecture: “I cannot
emphasize too strongly the fact that further progress depends on intelligent,
integrated, and persistent effort by government leaders, statesmen,
tradesmen, scientists, educators, and communication agencies…we can and must
make continuous progress.”
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