ABSTRACT
The development of hybrid corn was arguably the most important achievement of applied science in the twentieth century. The powerful, new technique of crossing inbred lines of corn to induce heterosis not only enabled breeders to derive highyielding corn, but also to derive insect-and disease-resistant corn. The case of the European Corn Borer is illustrative. An unpleasant product of the Columbian Exchange, the borer entered the United States in 1917, migrating west. By 1921, it had inhabited western Ohio, then the gateway to the Corn Belt. Alarmed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture assigned corn breeder Glen Herbert Stringeld to Toledo, Ohio, to derive inbred lines and hybrids resistant to the insect in hope of stopping it in its tracks. Stringeld immediately sought an alliance with the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station in Wooster. From the outset, then, the battle against the borer was a cooperative venture. The success of hybrid corn and its resistance to the European Corn Borer was thus largely an achievement of the land grant complex.1
