Norman Borlaug, Giga-Lifesaver
In the 1950s and ’60s, another giga-lifesaver, Norman Borlaug, outsmarted evolution to foment the Green Revolution in the developing world.21 Plants in nature invest a lot of energy and nutrients in woody stalks that raise their leaves and blossoms above the shade of neighboring weeds and of each other. Like fans at a rock concert, everyone stands up, but no one gets a better view. That’s the way evolution works: it myopically selects for individual advantage, not the greater good of the species, let alone the good of some other species. From a farmer’s perspective, not only do tall wheat plants waste energy in inedible stalks, but when they are enriched with fertilizer they collapse under the weight of the heavy seedhead. Borlaug took evolution into his own hands, crossing thousands of strains of wheat and then selecting the offspring with dwarfed stalks, high yields, resistance to rust, and an insensitivity to day length. After several years of this “mindwarpingly tedious work,” Borlaug evolved strains of wheat (and then corn and rice) with many times the yield of their ancestors. By combining these strains with modern techniques of irrigation, fertilization, and crop management, Borlaug turned Mexico and then India, Pakistan, and other famine-prone countries into grain exporters almost overnight. The Green Revolution continues—it has been called “Africa’s best-kept secret”—driven by improvements in sorghum, millet, cassava, and tubers.22
Notes:
Folksonomies: scientific progress enlightenment heroes science heroes
Taxonomies:
/business and industrial/agriculture and forestry/crops and seed (0.634627)
/art and entertainment/shows and events/concert (0.378290)
/food and drink (0.188656)
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Concepts:
Norman Borlaug (0.957260): dbpedia_resource
Rice (0.900018): dbpedia_resource
Green Revolution (0.839775): dbpedia_resource
Plant breeding (0.787696): dbpedia_resource
Poaceae (0.726757): dbpedia_resource
Green Revolution in India (0.724358): dbpedia_resource
Biodiversity (0.715098): dbpedia_resource
Agriculture (0.664045): dbpedia_resource
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress