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ARS Home Northeast Area Docs USDA History Exhibit







1950-1959headline bar   At Beltsville: 12,094 acres2,399 employees3,000 experimental farm animals10,000 laying and breeding fowls600 cattle5,500 small animals40 lab buildings31 greenhouses100 barns and storage500 small animal housesA steady stream of new varieties of fruits and vegetables with enhanced disease resistance, increased flavor, and other improvements are released. Notable varieties include the `Roma' tomato; `Topcrop' and `Tendercrop' beans; `Kennebec', `Atlantic', and `BelRus' potatoes; `Surecrop', `Earilglow' and `Allstar' strawberries; and `Duke', `Jersey' and `Bluecrop' blueberries. Variety development continues today as consumer needs change. First U.S. Plant Quarantine Station is established at Glenn Dale, MD.Work begins to eliminate screwworms, making the first use of E.F. Knipling's idea of sterile male insect release. The technique calls for raising millions of flies, sterilizing and then releasing them to mate with native flies, interrupting the population cycle. In 1982, screwworm is eliminated from the U.S. Scientists demonstrate that there is variation in the dietary availability of carotenes in different foods.National School Lunch Program standards are established, providing a "well balanced" meal to meet one-third of a child's daily dietary allowance. Release of the first in a series of turfgrass cultivars and germplasm with improved disease resistance and stress tolerance -- `Merion' Kentucky bluegrass, `Meyer' and `Belair' zoysia grasses, germplasm of tall fescue tolerant to acid soil, and the first zoysia grass from seed. Scientists also maintain a long association with the U.S. Golf Association to improve turfgrass varieties and management for recreational use.The first recorded spontaneous occurrence of parthenogenesis--the ability to give birth to offspring without mating with a male--in warm blooded animals is discovered in turkeys. A strain of Beltsville small white turkeys is then bred for a high incidence of parthenogenesis.


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