Word: seeding
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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During the '30s, North Dakota lost almost everything but its weathered denims and its prized "elbow room." Last year the state came back as one of the nation's biggest breadbaskets: first in spring and durum wheat production, first in barley, second in certified seed potatoes. North Dakota farms (average 1940 census value: $8,742) brought in an average 1943 income...
...beet-seed cluster may have as many as six seed germs, and plants grow so close together that the only practical thinning method is with the fingers or with short-handled hoes. Reducing the seed clusters to single seeds had baffled many previous experimenters. Plant breeding had failed. Bainer tried grinding the clusters, but that did not work. Then one day a cluster accidentally slipped under a steel bar. The bar's pressure cracked open both the cluster and Bainer's problem...
Upshot was a machine with a grinding wheel that pushes beet-seed clusters against a "shearing bar." This breaks up the cluster at its natural cell divisions. The cracked-off single seeds, when planted, need no thinning...
Last year 330,000 out of 552,000 western sugar-beet acres were planted with sheared seed. Estimated labor saving: 3,000,000 man hours. This year sheared seed will be used for the entire western region (expected acreage: 1,000,000). Bainer has developed other labor-saving machines for planting and harvesting; he expects to eliminate 90% of the hand labor...
...Bainer's seed splitting enables the beet to compete honestly with cane, it may have a drastic effect on the entire economy of some cane-producing countries...