Dwarf Varieties
Borlaug's wheat was designed to flourish under abundant application of fertilizer; however the tall, slender wheat stalks toppled under the heavy grain. Hence, Borlaug's third innovation was to crossbreed Japanese dwarf varieties with his prolific Mexican varieties. The outcome was phenomenal. Dr. Borlaug affirmed, “Through the use of this technique, we developed high-yielding, day-length-insensitive varieties with a wide range of ecologic adoption and a broad spectrum of disease resistance - a new combination of uniquely valuable characteristics in wheat varieties.”
“He worked tirelessly, and the result was a high-yield, dwarf-wheat variety with more kernels and a stalk strong enough to support the extra weight. Still unsatisfied, he continued developing those even further..."
- Ronald Phillips, Regents Professor of Agronomy and Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota
"Several things about this breakthrough made it special, gave it particular significance. It came in the hungry part of the world, not in those countries already surfeited with agricultural output. It came in the semi-tropics, which had long been in agricultural torpor...It produced new knowledge and technology that could be used by farmers in small tracts of land, rather than being, like many technological changes, adaptable only on large farms. And it was a breakthrough that came voluntarily, up from the grass roots, rather than being imposed arbitrarily from above." |
In under two decades, Norman Borlaug had produced dwarf wheat varieties that had staved off famine, and subsequently brought Mexico to self sufficiency by 1956.