ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one phase of the role of the state in agriculture, the provision of technology through agricultural research. As research in agriculture has traditionally been organized around specific commodities— principally those for which federal commodity programs have been designed— this research is specific to a particular commodity—wheat. Commodity research must be seen as an advance from discipline-oriented research, which broke down the specific parts of the wheat-growing cycle into separate and often unarticulated parts. In the early period of wheat production in Kansas, farm survival and expansion was based on the expansion of wheat acreage. Winter wheat yields were from four to six bushels greater for early plowing than for late plowing in seedbed preparation under continuous cropping. While the greatest emphasis in Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station research during the first quarter century was on cultural practices, work was also conducted on varietal development and fertilization.
