294 Agricultural Revolutions and Change
nitrogen raised yields more than fourfold. Even on rain-fed soils, yields more than
doubled and the addition of phosphate produced five- or sixfold increases. But the
traditional varieties had a tendency to grow tall and lodge, that is they fell down
under the weight of the luxuriant green growth produced by the extra nutrient
uptake, in effect making the grain liable to rot and be less harvestable. The breed-
ers also recognized the need for non-shattering varieties that would hold the grains
until they were ripe enough for mechanized harvesting and threshing. And wheats
with better milling and baking quality were required, now that Mexico was relying
solely on its own wheats and not blending with the stronger, imported varieties.
As the quotation at the beginning of this chapter testifies, short-strawed var-
ieties had long existed in Japan. In 1935 the Japanese had produced a new dwarf,
Norin 10, by crossing one of their traditional dwarfs with Mediterranean and Rus-
sian varieties imported from the US.^12 This was spotted by a US agricultural officer
working in Japan in 1946 and seeds were sent to Washington State University.
Initially the crosses with US wheats resulted in sterile offspring but then a fertile
cross was made from which, ten years later, Orville Vogel, of the US Department
of Agriculture (USDA), produced a new semi-dwarf variety called Gaines that
yielded a world record of over 14 tons/ha.
Norman Borlaug heard of Vogel’s work and in 1953 obtained some of his early
breeding material to cross with traditional Mexican varieties. By growing two crops
a year, a summer crop at Chapingo and a winter crop at a second experimental
station in the state of Sonora, lying in the rich, irrigated plain of the Pacific north-
west of Mexico, he produced, in record time, two new, superior dwarf-wheat var-
ieties. These were adapted to a wide range of day-length and other environmental
factors, and highly responsive to fertilizer applications (Figure 13.2). By 1966 the
new varieties were yielding 7 tons/ha. A decade later, virtually all of Mexico’s
wheatland was under these varieties and the country’s average yield was close to
3 tons/ha, having quadrupled since 1950 (Figure 13.3). By 1985 total production
had increased to 5·5 million tons.
Following the success of the new wheat and maize varieties in Latin America,
attention turned to the needs of Asia. Over much of Asia the staple diet was, and
still is, rice. Unlike wheat, rice is mostly grown by smallholders (on farms of less
than 3ha) for home consumption. In the 1950s, over 90 per cent of the rice pro-
duced in the world was grown in Asia; national yields averaged between 800 and
1900kg/ha.^13
Early in this century, Japan, China and Taiwan had developed a number of
new rice varieties which had led to significant increases in production, but the
major impact on Asian rice yields came in the 1960s as a result of the skilful efforts
of two groups of breeders, working in ignorance of each other, in China and the
Philippines. The benefits of scientists being able to pursue clear goals in multidis-
ciplinary teams had convinced those involved in the Mexican programme of the
need to create purpose-built research institutes which would attract scientists of
the highest calibre. In 1961 the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was
established at Los Baños in the Philippine province of Luzon as a joint venture