150 Points of Pride

The Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a proud and distinguished history. As part of Iowa State's sesquicentennial celebration, 150 points of pride related to the College - accomplishments, discoveries, contributions, highlights, famous and interesting people - will be posted here. These postings will coincide with 150 days of the 2007-2008 academic year, beginning Aug. 20, 2007 and ending May 2, 2008, with time off for the Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks. Check back each Monday for five new items.

John Pesek

John Pesek, Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences and agronomy emeritus professor, is world renowned for his role in the 1989 National Academy of Sciences Report on Alternative Agriculture. He began his service at Iowa State in 1950 after earning his doctorate in agronomy from North Carolina State and his bachelor’s and master’s at Texas A&M in his home state. He moved through the ranks to professor in the agronomy department at ISU and served as head from 1964 to 1990. He also served as interim dean of agriculture from 1987 to 1988. He has worked extensively internationally, emphasizing the environment, production agriculture and education. Pesek participated in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1972 and served terms as president for American Society of Agronomy (1979) and the Soil Science Society of America (1986). He fostered the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology and helped organize the First International Crop Science Congress. Pesek directed a major addition to Agronomy Hall and developed the Agronomy and Agricultural Engineering Research Farm. He retired in 1992, but continues to participate in departmental activities and keeps regular office hours.

Fast fact: According to Pesek, “sustainable agriculture depends upon a myriad of factors including, time, place, technology and need…we cannot consider ourselves sustainable until we know we and our civilization are still here as far into the future as the time elapsed since the emergence of agriculture.”

Raymond F. Baker

Raymond F. Baker

Raymond Baker was born near Beaconsfield, Iowa. His work as a corn breeder, researcher and leader at Pioneer Hi-Bred helped to foster a revolution in agronomy. Baker was instrumental in developing the superior hybrid corn cultivars that helped to bring about enormous changes in farming. Henry Wallace taught Baker the techniques and procedures of corn breeding and, in 1933, when Wallace became U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, Baker was promoted to direct Pioneer’s research program. During his more than 50 years of corn breeding, Baker initiated the practices of comparison test plots, cold germination testing and breeding for insect and disease resistance, procedures now standard in corn breeding and hybrid seed production. He was a fellow in both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Agronomy and was instrumental in establishing the National Council of Commercial Plant Breeders. The Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding, a part of ISU’s Plant Sciences Institute, was named in his honor.

Fast fact: Baker was due to graduate in 1928 from Iowa State with a bachelor’s degree in agronomy, but skipped his last quarter to become the second employee of the newly launched Hi-Bred Corn Company, later to become Pioneer Hi-Bred. He later received his degree in 1939.

World-class corn breeding

George F. Sprague

The corn breeding program at Iowa State began in 1922. The first Iowa State College and USDA hybrids were available for planting in 1933. George F. Sprague is considered one of the fathers of modern maize breeding and is credited for bringing the corn breeding program at Iowa State to prominence. He was a member of the Iowa State agronomy faculty from 1939 to 1958 and died Nov. 24, 1998. Lloyd Tatum, Wilbert Russell and Arnel Hallauer also were instrumental in the program, which in 1953 began to release lines of “stiff-stalk” synthetic lines with improved plant characteristics, and disease and insect resistance. The lines are known as Iowa Stiff Stalk Synthetic (BSSS) and are considered the most important inbred lines in the maize industry. They are parent to nearly half of all maize produced in temperate regions of the world.

Fast fact: One of ISU’s most notable corn lines, the B73 inbred line released in 1972, continues to form a widely used female parent base for hybrids used across the North American Corn Belt and abroad.

$80 million gift makes history

The Iowa State University Department of Agronomy was the recipient of the largest private gift ever given to Iowa State University in September 1999, announced at $80 million. A committee of departmental advisory board members, stakeholders, agronomy department heads from peer institutions, ISU administration and ISU agronomy faculty and staff created a plan for the endowment over the course of one year and seven drafts. The gift has been implemented according to the major focus of the endowment plan which was to build on the department’s record of success by: expanding knowledge in crop, soil and atmospheric sciences emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration; developing information, products, services and technologies for future agronomic practices; preparing students for successful careers in agronomic and related sciences, and providing opportunities for their continued education; improving crop production and soil management practices while enhancing environmental quality; and anticipating and facilitating production of society’s food, feed, fuel and fiber needs.

Fast fact: Since funds from the anonymous gift began to reach the department in 2000, endowment-funded projects have resulted in more than 50 research publications, more than $3.5 million in external funding and allowed the department to recruit and retain top quality students and faculty.

Popcorn anyone?

Iowa State University was home to the most comprehensive public popcorn-breeding program in the nation, first directed by John C. Eldredge. Popcorn seed was initially distributed in 1937 and hybrids followed in 1945. Eldredge, an alum, joined the faculty at Iowa State College in 1921 as an assistant professor. He remained a member of the faculty until his retirement in 1960, but continued to work for the university serving on the Committee for Agricultural Development into the 1970s. He died March 15, 1976 and is buried in the Iowa State University Cemetery. Eldredge specialized in the research and development of popcorn hybrids. He also operated Ames Seed Farm, a hybrid seed company south of Ames in the 1940s. The firm primarily produced corn, popcorn and oat seed. Walter Thomas succeeded Eldredge as director of the program. It was suspended in the 1950s and resumed in 1979 under the direction of Kenneth Zeigler, who led the program until its conclusion in 2004.

Fast fact: The first director of the ISU popcorn breeding program, J.C. Eldredge, produced many of the varieties with the identifier, Iopop, most notably, Iopop 6.

*Some historic photographs courtesy of the University Archives.

150 Points of Pride Archives