 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Norin 10 wheat" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Norin 10 wheat (小麦農林10号) is a semi-dwarfwheatcultivar with very large ears that wasbred byGonjiro Inazuka [ja] at anexperimental station inIwate Prefecture,Japan. Its parents were a semi-dwarf Japaneselandrace that may have originated in Korea in the 3rd or 4th century AD, and two varieties from the USA.[1] In 1935 it was registered as a numbered cultivar by the JapaneseMinistry of Agriculture and ForestryNōrinshō (農林省).
Norin 10 grew to just two feet (60 - 100 cm) tall, instead of the usual four (150 cm).[1] It provided two genes,Rht1 andRht2, that resulted in reduced-height wheats, thus allowing better nutrient uptake and tillage, since when heavily fertilised with nitrogen, tall varieties grow too high, become top-heavy, andlodge.[2]
TheRht1 andRht2 genes have been used in wheat breeding programmes worldwide to provide shorter plants with higher yields.Cecil Salmon, a biologist and wheat expert on GeneralDouglas MacArthur's team inJapan after 1945, collected 16 varieties of wheat including Norin 10. He sent these seeds toOrville Vogel atWashington State University and they were used within USA breeding programmes in the 1950s. Norin 10 was also provided to theInternational Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico. It was used here byNorman Borlaug and collaborators in crosses with local varieties to produce dwarf varieties that were also daylight-insensitive and had resistance torust disease. These were subsequently distributed worldwide.[3] These included high-output varieties tested in India (Lerma Rojo 64 and Sonora 64) during theGreen Revolution.[1]
Norin 10 helpeddeveloping countries, such as India and Pakistan, to increase the productivity of their crops by approximately 60% during theGreen Revolution.
