For a brief time in the early 1960s, he left his public breeding job to set up a new cotton hybrid breeding program for DeKalb in Arizona, only to see it fold up shop shortly after its inception. So he returned to the University of Georgia, where he finished his career. Weaver is still welcomed by workers at the University's Plant Sciences Farm with the respect that's due a professor emeritus. In one of the farm supervisor's offices at that farm, he recently made the case for hybrid cotton. It is obvious.
Hybrids produce more squares.
And you can get a definite increase in earliness from hybrids. It's great for the environment. And you carry more bales to the gin. Weaver further explains that cotton hybrids are widely planted in other parts of the world, notably in the southern part of India, where some cotton is grown in the winter. The yield increase was this large because the productivity of the Indian varieties was the same as that of varieties that were planted in the U.S. 100 years ago, he adds.