Evening star., 1941-03-27
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory. Field
And Study
By Thomas r. Henri.

~ &tOHt0o ~. HcIHV.
Mixing royal blood into lowly ouack
grass, pest of Eastern lawns, is being
tried by Department of Agriculture plant
breeders as means of reclothing with
verdure drought-stripped Western plains.
This and other wild grasses are being
crossed with wheat, barley, oats and
rye to produce a hardy, aggressive type
which will be more than a match for
weeds which naturally take possession
of devastated area In the past, grasses
have been mixed with grains to improve
the quality of the latter-to produce
sturdier growth, hardness and disease
resistance. Grass itself, which covers
half the cultivated area of the world
and basically is the most important
source of food, has been taken for
granted.
The grains are all grasses Millenniums
of breeding, much of it before the dawn
of history, have increased their yields
of seeds. Primitive man, of course, did
not deliberately breed them. He gath
cred the seeds of the grasses he found
in nature, and accidentally brought the
natural large-seeded varieties together.
Then the crossbreeding progressed
automatically until the grain families of
today became specialized. The earliest
civilizations were built up upon them.
But like all blue bloods the grains
developed inherent weaknesses. They
were specialized to bear seeds. They
lost their fighting spirit against both
disease and external enemies. Especially
they lost the capacity to come up from
the roots year after year. Instead, it
was necessary to rear a new generation
from seed. They lost the power to
stand on their own feet and required
the constant help Of man.
One of the chief efforts Of the past
few years has been to breed back a
perennial grain-a wheat, for example,
that would yield yearly crops without the
need for resolving. The most obvious
way to do this was to produce crosses
with perennial grass in the hope that
a combination could be reached with
the desirable qualities of both parents.
1t was all an effort to improve royalty
rather than the masses.
The work on grass itself Is being
carried on under the direction of DR..
D. C. Smith of the Bureau of Plant
Industry One objective is to make
better forage plant. 1t may be possible
to add good deal of the food value
OF wheat or oats to a grass which will
spring up afresh from year to year
without any attention. A more i'm
mediate reason is to produce a grass
that will fight to recapture lost territory
and which will be able to feed itself
during prolonged actions
Biologists during the past few years
have found an almost universal law of
progression. Once an area like the
Western plains has been devastated by
drought, fire or food, it becomes at first
a waste of weeds, valueless for animal
food. Gradually the harder wild grasses
push out the weeds and re-establish
themselves. to be followed by more and
more nutritive grasses until finally an
animal range is re-established.
Most OF the pasture grasses are pacific.
They will spread only where there is
little opposition. Such varieties as quack
grass, however, are tenacious fighters.
Their value as food, however, is not
great. The ideal would be to get some
thing which combined this fighting quail
lty with the rich succulency of wheat or
oats. Another difficulty is that most of
the grasses have very small seeds. These
quickly lose their capacity to sprout
when subjected to long drought, where
as, the larger grain seeds. containing
plenty of starch to keep them alive in
the dormant state, may retain their
terminating power for years.
Many thousands Of crosses are possible.
The number of grasses on earth runs
into the thousands, and any one may
become the parent of the new range
grass. The most successful crosses to
date have been between spring wheat
and quack grass. A single generation
hybrid has been produced. The two
species, however, are far apart in nature
and the seeds proved sterile.
The plant breeders, however, are pro-
vided with powerful new tool in the
form of colchichine, a drug which in
many cases profoundly alters the inter-
nal structure of seeds and plant cells and
makes possible fertile hybrids which
hitherto have been impossible.
Incidental efforts are being made to
produce hybrids which will have better
winter resistance and better recuperative
powers after they have been closely
grazed by sheep and cattle. The present
pasture grasses of the United States,
it is pointed out, were largely intro.
duced from Europe by the colonists
and little effort to improve them ever
has been made.