Hybrid

by Kingsbury, Noel

• ISBN13: 9780226437132
• ISBN10: 0226437132
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-30
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Disheartened by the shrink-wrapped, Styrofoam-packed state of contemporary supermarket fruits and vegetables, many shoppers hark back to a more innocent time, to visions of succulent red tomatoes plucked straight from the vine, gleaming orange carrots pulled from loamy brown soil, swirling heads of green lettuce basking in the sun. With Hybrid, Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural; rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritiousa story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needsand thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new; plant breeding has always had a political dimension. A powerful reminder of the complicated and ever-evolving relationship between humans and the natural world, Hybridwill give readers a thoughtful new perspective onand a renewed appreciation ofthe cereal crops, vegetables, fruits, and flowers that are central to our way of life.

Author Biography

Noel Kingsbury is a horticulturalist and the author of many books, including Designing with Plants and Natural Gardening in Small Spaces, and coeditor of Vista: The Culture and Politics of Gardens.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xiii
A Note on Names	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Meet the Ancestors-Wild Crops	p. 2
Nature and Nurture-Evolution, Natural and Human-Directed	p. 3
Thrust Unwillingly to the Stage-Plant Breeding Enters Politics	p. 5
The Story of Plant Breeding	p. 7
Abbreviations	p. 11
From The Birth of Agriculture to the Birth of Genetics	p. 13
Origins: The Domestication of Plants	p. 15
"A gathering we will go"-From Foraging to Farming	p. 16
Maize Mysteries	p. 20
As the Farmer Drives the Plow-Evolution in Early Agriculture	p. 24
Serendipity-Interspecific Hybridization	p. 31
Planting Cities and Streets-Domestication and Civilization	p. 35
Landraces: Bedrock of Traditional Agriculture	p. 38
Unique to Time and Place-Landraces	p. 39
Weaving a Coat of Many Colors-The Origins of Diversity	p. 41
Seed and Spirit-Diversity and Landrace Politics	p. 48
"Improvement": The Agricultural Revolutions	p. 55
A Time of Ferment-The Age of Multiple Revolutions	p. 55
From Fodder to Fruit-New Crops and New Markets	p. 60
New Rice, New Methods-Song China's "Green Revolution"	p. 64
Hemmed between the Mountains and the Sea-Japan	p. 65
Vegetable Mules: The Beginnings of Deliberate Breeding	p. 68
Floral Facts of Life-Early Knowledge about Plants and Sex	p. 70
Outrage! The Cautious Beginnings of Deliberate Hybridization	p. 73
The Professors-Kolreuter and Other Academic Hybridists	p. 77
Gentleman Practitioners-Thomas Andrew Knight and Others	p. 80
Sex and the Single Strawberry	p. 83
Sweet Necessity-Sugarcane and Sugar Beet	p. 87
Moravia-Land of Progress	p. 89
From the Greenhouse to the Pulpit-Hybridization and Popular Attitudes	p. 93
Empire: Globalization in Earnest	p. 97
A Universal Garden-Global Exchanges of Crops	p. 98
From One Hedgerow to Many Fields-Finding and Distributing New Cereal Varieties	p. 102
Breeding a Dynasty-The Vilmorin Family	p. 107
Onwards and Upwards-The "German Method"	p. 109
Weaving the Bread Basket of the World	p. 111
Poverty and the Potato-A New Crop Is Adapted Slowly to a New Home	p. 117
Seeds of Conflict-Variety Selection and Imperial Rule	p. 120
Cotton, Spinner of Many Troubles	p. 122
An Apple a Day-The Rise of the Fruit Industry	p. 128
The Strawberry-A Soft and Juicy Story Continues	p. 134
A Free-for-All-The Arrival of the Seed Catalog	p. 138
Breakthrough: Gregor Mendel	p. 142
Sowing the Prairies and the Plains-Plant Breeding in the Late-Nineteentb-Century United States	p. 144
Britons Unbending-The 1899 Conference and the Introduction of Mendel	p. 151
A New Word for a New Concept-"Genetics" and the 1902 and 1906 Conferences	p. 155
Light from the North-Scandinavian Progress in Crop Genetics	p. 160
Germination: Mendelism and Plant Breeding in the Early Twentieth Century	p. 167
Twilight of the Gentleman Amateur-Mendel in Britain	p. 169
Slowly and Unsteadily-Mendelian Progress in Germany and France	p. 175
Plant Breeding in a Packet-W. Atlee Burpee	p. 177
The Independent Spirit Lives on-Potatoes	p. 181
An Unpleasant Diversion-Eugenics	p. 183
Luther Burbank: Miracle Worker or Charlatan?	p. 187
The Gene Pool as Cornucopia-Rise of a Genetic Wizard	p. 187
A Reputation Impaled-On a Spineless Cactus	p. 192
"Let History Judge": Plant Breeding and Politics in the Ussr	p. 197
Days of Hope-Nikolai Vavilov	p. 197
Days of Delusion-Ivan Michurin and "Soviet Creative Darwinism"	p. 201
Days of Madness-Trofim Lysenko and "Agrobiology"	p. 204
Seed Collecting at Gunpoint-Nazi Germany and Genetic Resources	p. 212
Flowering of a Technology	p. 215
1Hybridization	p. 217
Gift of the Gods-Corn	p. 219
Shows, Lab Tests, and Beauty Contests-Just What Makes Good Corn?	p. 223
Too Fantastic a Concept? The Birth of Hybrid Corn	p. 227
New Crops, New Business	p. 233
The Scientist as Mystic? The Barbara McClintock Legend	p. 238
"CRUNCH!" the Irresistible Savor of Summer-Sweet Corn	p. 240
1Corn Story Continues	p. 241
A Con-Trick with Corn? A Critical Perspective on Hybrid Corn	p. 244
Cornucopia: Genetics Opens up the Horn of Plenty	p. 251
Crossing the Boundaries-The Hybrid Story Continues	p. 253
Casting the Net Ever Wider-Hybridizing between Species	p. 256
In Full Flower-Plant Breeding as an Applied Science	p. 261
Compounding the Compounds-Breeding for Plant Chemistry	p. 263
The Genetics of the Roulette Wheel-Mutation Breeding	p. 266
One Set of Chromosomes Good, Two Sets Better-Polyploidy	p. 272
The Juggernaut of Progress Rolls on-The Gastronomic and Social Impacts of Plant Breeding	p. 273
Cereal Makeover-Redesigning Wheat	p. 277
The Grass Keeps on Getting Greener-A Short Journey along the Back Roads of Breeding	p. 279
Green Revolution: Can Plant Breeding Feed The World?	p. 284
The Baleful Eye-Thomas Malthus and Food Policy	p. 287
Iowa Farm Boy Makes Good in Mexico-Norman Borlaug	p. 291
A Fantasy no More-India Feeds Itself	p. 298
Food for Half Our Race-Boosting Rice Yields	p. 301
New Seeds, New Hope, New Problems-The Green Revolution's First Decade	p. 305
Beyond Yield-The Revolution Marches on	p. 319
Not Green and Not a Revolution? Critical Voices	p. 321
Malthus Defied! Conclusions	p. 325
Ornament: Furnishing our Gardens	p. 329
The Show's the Thing-The Florists and Their Flowers	p. 331
Tulip Madness and the Origins of Capitalism	p. 335
Passion and Obsession-Nurserymen Breeders and Gentleman Amateurs	p. 336
A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose-But the Genes are Never the Same	p. 343
A Garden in a Packet-The Flower Seed and Bulb Trade	p. 345
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose-The Twentieth Century's Endless Search for Novelty	p. 348
The Perfection of the Unnatural-Ornamental Plant Breeding as Art and Fashion	p. 356
Ownership and Diversity: Issues of Property Rights over Plant Genetic Resources	p. 364
Use It, Save It, or Lose It! Gene Banks	p. 366
For the Public Good-Plant Breeding by the Taxpayer	p. 370
Whoever Owns the Seed Owns the Crop-Private and Corporate Breeding	p. 374
Keep Off! Those Seeds Are Mine! The Rise of Patent Protection	p. 381
Helping Hands or Thieving Hands? Patents, Developing Countries, and the International Agencies	p. 385
Challenging the Boundaries-Participatory Breeding	p. 389
Respecting Nature, but What Is Natural? The Dilemmas of Breeding for Organic Agriculture	p. 393
Counting the Cost of Monopolies-Some Conclusions	p. 394
Conclusions	p. 398
The Grand Narrative: A Summary of Plant Breeding History	p. 399
Of Empires and Harvests-What Drives Plant Breeding?	p. 402
Henry Ford and the Genetic Bottleneck	p. 406
Fundamental Rupture or Logical Progression? GM Crops and History	p. 409
Attack of the Literary Locusts-The Opponents of Plant Breeding	p. 411
The Future is Creole	p. 417
Technical Notes	p. 421
Bibliographic Essay	p. 437
Works Cited and Consulted	p. 451
Index	p. 477
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