Carl Speaks on the History of Seed
Last fall, Carl had the privilege to speak at the 2012 Governors’ Conference on North Dakota History. Being his wife, my first thought was, “well…I guess he is getting pretty old. He probably does know quite a bit about the state’s history.” But, that isn’t very fair. He was asked to speak on a subject that he really does know a lot about – SEED!
The topic he was given was Seed Advances from Mesopotamia to St. Louis. As you can imagine, he had to do quite a bit of research to learn the origins of seed all the way back to Mesopotamia. Interestingly enough, the history of seed through the 19th century can be told rapidly – not much happened. Advances started coming more quickly in the 1930’s with hybridization. And the changes that have been made in the last twenty years are truly mind-boggling! But, hold on to your hats! The advances that are certain to come in the next twenty years will surely dwarf the previous 3,000 years all-together!
Because of our independence, Peterson Farms Seed is in a great position to assess the needs of farmers in this region and respond with products to meet those needs – from multiple technology partners, rather than utilizing one single technology solution.
Recently, I received a dvd of Carl’s presentation from the 2012 History Conference, and we’ve posted it to the PFS YouTube channel. It is not a fancy recording, but you can clearly hear his talk and see his charts. If you’re interested in North Dakota’s agricultural history, you may want to take look. The first part talks about seed advances. At about 16:00, he begins talking about ND’s historical crop acreage.
