Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The passing of a giant who bred dwarfs



Norman Borlaug pioneered wheat breeding and the use of dwarf varieties of wheat. This meant that the wheat plants were able to put more of the energy into producing grain and less into producing stalks. The proportion of grain to stalks and leaves is known as "harvest index"
The lower you harvest index the greater amount of grain was produced in relation to the amount of biomass (stalk and leaves) the plant produced. He won a Nobel prize for his work on lowering the Harvest index in wheat. He was strong advocate for technology and taking new ideas to common people, and letting them see how it would impact their lives. He was also a anomoly in the fact that he knew that for scientific success to be attained he also had to be a diplomat and a bit of a politician. He is considered the father of the "Green Revolution". He died on Sunday at the age of 95.

2 comments:

fob said...

The Newshour did a story on him last night and the first thing I thought of was our conversation out on the dirt roads of Missouri.

Joshua Stamper said...

You have no idea what that means to me. Thanks