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Blight Proof
Hybrid Corn
Being Developed
The blight sweeping thousands of acres of American cornfields this summer will create hungry pigs and unhappy housewives this winter. Most of the corn grown in the United States is used for animal and poultry feed. A sharp drop in the harvest will mean higher prices for beef, pork, bacon, chicken, eggs, and a score of related products including corn jsyrup and mayonnaise. More than 90 percent of the corn planted in the United States is hybrid, crossbred for stronger stalks that support more ears, for quick maturity as protection against frost damage-and for resistance to Southern Corn Leaf Blight. * Disease Takes New Form
But this year a virulent mutant of the leaf blight struck fields from Florida almost to the Canadian border. Its wind-borne spores traveled 100 miles in a day, infecting fields in their path.
Since 1922, when the first 10 bushels of hybrid seed were sown on American farms, the harvest of the Nation’s leading crop has grown from about 2.5 billion bushels a year to 4.5 billion bushels.
Before the epidemic, the 1970 harvest was expected to total a record 4.7 billion bushels. Now the Department of Agriculture says at least 10 percent of the crop has been destroyed, and the final toll could be twice that high.
The new strain of Helminthosporium maydis, oi leaf blight fungus, attacks only hybrid corn containing a certain gene. Unfortunately, this gene is found in more than 80 percent ol !»»«***« aar .
85.4%