Institutions don’t last 100 years without dedicated employees
Oct 22, 2009 10:15 AM, By Ron Smith, Farm Press Editorial Staff
The first combine-height sorghum came out in the 1930s. Station scientists identified the waxy grain mutant and released seven varieties during the 1930s.
Eight more varieties came on in the 1940s. “A winter nursery was developed in Mexico with the Rockefeller Foundation,” Moore said, “to speed progress in the breeding program and to exchange germplasm.”
The station also aided the war effort with waxy sorghum that helped starch demand for General Foods.
The station released 26 varieties in the 1950s, along with 18 parental lines and a hybrid sorghum in conjunction with the Chillicothe Station.
“Varieties developed at Lubbock (in the 1950s) were the parents in the first sorghum hybrids,” Moore said. “Station researchers also began work on lodging resistance and yellow endosperm grain.”
In the 1960s the station released 82 parental lines and the first yellow endosperm line. Scientists initiated studies into greenbug resistance.
In the 1970s, the center released 86 parental lines of germplasm, 183 converted sorghum lines, the first greenbug resistant germplasm, the first midge resistant germplasm, and developed a program for resistance to drought stress.
In the 1980s, 62 parental lines were released along with 240 converted sorghum lines. Another three parental lines came out in the 1990s, with 207 converted sorghum lines. Researchers also “mapped genes for resistance to post-flowering drought stress and for resistance to greenbug biotypes. We also introduced 3,000 sorghums from The Sudan and 1,800 sorghums from Mali,” Moore said.
In the new century, 98 parental lines have come from the sorghum research program so far, along with 49 converted sorghum lines. “We also initiated research on specialty sorghum,” Moore said.
Currently, 85 percent of the sorghum produced on the High Plains is hybrid. Hybrid Sudan sorghum for forage accounts for 65 percent of the amount produced on the High Plains. And 60 percent of the hybrids sold have one parent from AgriLife research. Domestically, 40 percent of hybrid sorghums sold have both parents from AgriLife Research. Internationally, that percentage is 50.
Along with Karper, Moore said J.C. Stephens, Roy Quinby, D.T. Rosenow, G.L. Teetes, J.W. Johnson, and current sorghum breeder Gary Peterson have contributed to the improvements in grain sorghum production on the High Plains.
Cotton work began early, too. “Early years at the Research Center were spent evaluating different cotton varieties and production practices,” Moore said.
The importance of identifying storm proof varieties became evident when a dust storm hit on Thanksgiving Day, 1926, and blew un-harvested cotton out of the bur. Moore said the beginning for storm proof cotton came when H.A. Macha, of Tahoka, “noticed a single plant of Half and Half variety that had remained intact and undamaged (from the storm). “Macha tried to perfect this strain for storm proof cotton for several years before giving the seed to D.L. Jones in 1934. Many storm proof varieties were developed from Macha’s original seed.”
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