Researched
Genetics and plant breeding
Hybrid maize (Shull, 1908-09) and systematic selection, built on Mendel's rediscovered laws (1900), turned plant and animal breeding from craft into science.
Open in the interactive tree →Gregor Mendel's pea experiments were rediscovered in 1900. George Shull's work on inbred lines and hybrid vigour (1908-09) led to hybrid maize, which spread through the US Corn Belt from the 1930s with large yield gains. The same logic later underlay dwarf wheat and rice.
Prerequisites
- Animal domestication~9000 BC
- Evolution by natural selection1859
- Mendel's laws of heredity1866Mendel's 1866 laws of inheritance are the rule base of plant and animal breeding