Henry Beachell

Henry Monroe Beachell (born September 21, 1906 in Waverly , Nebraska ; † December 13, 2006 in Alvin , Texas ) was an American agronomist who in 1966 played a key role in the breeding of the high-yielding rice variety IR8 ( "miracle rice") . “Wunder-Reis”) and thus made a decisive contribution to the so-called Green Revolution and to improving the world food situation.

Life

Henry Monroe ("Hank") Beachell was born in Waverly, the second of seven children to William Albert and Alice Leona Degler Beachell. His family moved to a corn and wheat farm in western Nebraska. In 1930 Beachell graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in agronomy , and in 1934 received a master's degree in plant breeding and genetics from Kansas State University .

plant

Agricultural Research Center, Beaumont TX (1931-1963)

In 1931, Henry Beachell began his research at the Agricultural Research and Extension Center of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS) in Beaumont , Texas . The ARS was a US Department of Agriculture research facility that worked closely with Texas A&M University .

During his time at the ARS, Beachell bred a total of nine high-yielding long-grain rice varieties, which resulted in a rapid increase in the results of the rice harvests in the USA, while at the same time improving the quality. During this time Beachell also undertook numerous study trips to the rice-growing regions of India, Central and South America, and set up the Texas Rice Improvement Association - a private foundation to support rice research at Texas A&M University.

International Rice Research Institute (1963–1982)

In 1963, Henry Beachell left the ARS and began research at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Laguna , Philippines . The IRRI attempted to develop a rice variety that was disease and pest resistant, responded well to fertilizers without the tendency to kink due to increased stalk growth, and should produce high yields when ripe early; for this purpose, among other things, small Taiwanese rice varieties were crossed with high-yielding Indonesian rice varieties. Beachell achieved the breakthrough in 1966 with IR8 (International Rice 8) through the successful selection of a cross from the Taiwanese variety Dee-geo-woo-gen with the Indonesian PETA .

With the new rice variety, harvest results of 6 to 8 tons per hectare could be achieved on trial fields in several Asian countries - which corresponds to a doubling of previous yields. At the same time - due to the shortened growth and ripening times - it was possible to harvest more often than before. Because of these astonishing results and the resulting opportunity to significantly improve the food supply in Asia, the IR8 was soon given the name “miracle rice”. Beachell and the team at IRRI continued to develop the IR8 rice variant in the following years, making it more resistant to diseases, pest infestation and more adaptable to a wide variety of growing regions.

In 1972, Beachell left the IRRI Philippines office and started working at an IRRI office in Indonesia . Here, too, his work had an impact: rice production in Indonesia rose by around 100 percent.

RiceTec Inc. in Alvin TX (from 1982)

In 1982 he returned to the United States and became a consultant at RiceTec Inc. in Alvin / Texas , a company that specializes in the breeding, development, production, processing and marketing of high-quality hybrid rice varieties. The company has its own research center and sells its products in over 20,000 supermarkets across North America. Since 1997 he has worked in collaboration with Cornell University and the US Department of Agriculture to set up a rice genome database for rice growers.

Awards

Beachell had already received the John Scott Medall and the Premium of the City of Philadelphia in 1969, followed by the IRRI Award in 1972. The governments of Korea and Japan awarded him in 1978 and 1987 ( Japan Prize ), respectively . He received the Kansas State Medallion Award in 1998 and was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska and Seoul State University .

Probably the most important honor, however, was the presentation of the World Food Prize 1996, which Henry Beachell received together with Gurdev S. Khush , his former employee at IRRI, who had successfully further developed the IR8 as the IR36. The prize, created in 1986 by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Ernest Borlaug , honors people who have made special efforts to improve the quantity, quality or availability of food. Beachell used the money from the $ 250,000 World Food Prize to set up numerous scholarships at the University of Nebraska, Kansas State University, and Texas A&M University to promote young scientists.

Web links

• Henry M. Beachell Dies at 100th obituary, New York Times , December 28, 2006
• Beachell Wins World Food Prize. AgriLife.org, October 18, 1996 (English)
• The 1987 (3nd) Japan Prize. Justification of the Japan Prize Foundation for awarding the prize to H. Beachell and G. Khush (English)

literature

• GS Khush, WR Coffman and HM Beachell: The history of rice breeding: IRRI's contribution. In: IRRI (Ed.): Rice Research and Production in the 21st Century: Symposium Honoring Robert F. Chandler, Jr. 2001, pp. 117–135 ( online , PDF, 19mb)