Wheat Diseases and Disease Resistance in the Turkey Wheat Region

Abstract

I am pleased to have this opportunity to return to Kansas, the location of some of the most satisfying years of my life. My stay here was of shorter duration and more recent than that of my colleagues in this program so I won't claim to be an old Kansan. However, Turkey wheat arrived in this area about the time that my grandparents homesteaded injewell County, Kansas, following their marriage in February of 1872. I do not know when they first started growing Turkey wheat, but it was on their farm by the time of my father's boyhood. Although we are here to honor Turkey wheat, it is also a pleasure to share this platform with those whom I might call Mr. Pawnee and Mr. Scout wheat, Dr. Quisenberry and Dr. Schmidt, breeders of two of the most successful wheat varieties ever to grace the Central Plains. Today we celebrate 100 years of Turkey wheat as the backbone of wheat in the Central Plains; Kansas production is annually over 300 million bushels, with a record crop of over 380 million bushels in 1973. Nevertheless, in spite of these credentials Turkey did not become famous immediately nor have the wheat prospects always been as good as they have been in recent years. I quote from the Second Annual Report of the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station for the year 1889 (36): position of wheat raising in Kansas agriculture has always been a peculiar one; almost from the first, the acreage has been subject to wide fluctuations, unknown in the case of other staple grains, and due largely to the changing opinions of farmers themselves. . ... In the central portion of the State, in the '70's, wheat was the universal crop; for various reasons the great wheat fields gave place to even larger corn fields, and a system of mixed farming. There, in fact, had been a short crop of wheat in 1885, 1886, and 1887, and we might consider wheat in Kansas to be in the doldrums. The Kansas variety test of 1889 did not yet include any Turkey wheat, 15 years into our centennial. Many well-known old soft red winter names may be found in the list (74). Thus, the spread and establishment of Turkey was not rapid by present standards, nor was the wheat crop yet so great. Knowledge and acceptance of new varieties presented a different picture from what they do today. Turkey apparently did not enter Kansas experimental plots until 1891, and for some reason made a poor showing that year (15). In 1892 it was much better (14). As you have heard already, things eventually began to change in regard to