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The abridged story of a South Dakota wheat breeder whose determination, persistence and personal sacrifice changed the world.

In spring 1920, Edgar McFadden was toiling away in the wheat fields of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station's Highmore location. McFadden was State College's official plant breeder and was conducting experiments aimed at developing a rust-resistant wheat variety.

This had been a boyhood dream of McFadden's ever since the harvest of 1904, the year he was responsible for running the family farm. That year, his father was bedridden after being gored by a bull, and at the age of 13, McFadden planted the crops and watched as the wheat fields turned ripe with a golden hue. Then, just days before harvest, he found red spores on the stalks of his wheat plants and shriveled-up kernels. The stem rust epidemic had arrived in South Dakota and destroyed thousands of bushels across the state.

From that moment on, McFadden — or "Mac," as everyone called him — was determined to find a solution.

In 1911, McFadden enrolled at what is now known as ÈÕ±¾avÊÓƵ and began conducting crossbreeding experiments under the direction of assistant agronomy professor Manley Champlin. He was inspired by the work of Luther Burbank, a well-known botanist, who converted desert cactus into a valuable fruit.

From his days on the family farm, McFadden recognized that wheat plants were not all the same. They had different characteristics and traits that, McFadden realized, made them unique. In particular, he saw firsthand that Yaroslav emmer was rather unaffected from stem rust. Unfortunately, emmer was all but useless to farmers. But taking cues from Burbank, McFadden had any idea. Could he take the desirable traits from emmer and breed them into more commonly grown wheat varieties?

The idea was far-fetched to everyone but McFadden. Emmer had 28 chromosomes, and bread wheat had 42. The two plants couldn't possibly be crossed successfully, scientists thought. But Champlin encouraged the young State College student, and McFadden began experimenting with crosses of the two plants in the backyard of his rented house in Brookings.

What happened next is nothing short of a miracle. Over the July Fourth weekend in 1916, the two rows of plants — emmer and Marquis, the preeminent wheat variety at the time — had a brief overlapping period in which they were both in full bloom. McFadden spent the holiday carefully crossbreeding the two plants, castrating the emmer flowers and sprinkling the bread wheat pollen into tissue paper.

The following spring, he planted his hybrids in the tiny backyard plot. He waited and waited until finally, a single seed sprouted and produced 100 shriveled kernels. He didn't know it at the time, but those unpromising-looking kernels would pave the way for the greatest agricultural innovation in modern history.

But back in 1920, McFadden received some challenging news. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which partly funded the Highmore station's work, would be withdrawing its support after a big cut in appropriations from Congress. Instead of continuing his wheat research, the federal government offered him a position in one of its Washington, D.C. offices. The pay would be lucrative — the highest salary permitted by civil service regulations — but McFadden couldn't let go of his work. He wrote to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "I am more interested in certain problems here in South Dakota than I am in high-salaried positions in the East."

McFadden continued on. He left Highmore and returned to his family farm in Day County, bringing the precious plant breeding material with him. McFadden mortgaged the farm to pay for his work, essentially going "all in" on his goal of developing a rust-resistant variety.

Five years later, McFadden's bet paid off. After years of trials and hardships, those early crosses of emmer and Marquis had developed into a good — but not great — wheat variety. He named his variety "Hope" and immediately sent seeds to breeders around the U.S.

While Hope was not a great producer of grain, it was resistant to both stem and leaf rust. This innovation was massive news and made headlines in newspapers around the world. Even better, Hope had 42 chromosomes, which meant it could easily breed with high-yielding wheat varieties.

The true impact of Hope would not be felt until a decade or so later. As World War II began heating up in Europe, derivatives of Hope were being planted all across the U.S. Hope's ability to resist both stem and leaf rusts allowed yields to exponentially increase. It's estimated that almost all of California's wheat fields were planted with varieties containing Hope's genetics. Hope allowed U.S. farmers to raise 2 billion bushels of wheat "without much great effort." Subsequently, many historians credit Hope with helping fuel the Allies to victory in World War II.

In 1947, Reader's Digest, which at the time was the most influential publication in the world, published McFadden's story, titled "Burbank of the wheat fields." The magazine estimated that Hope saved the lives of over 25 million people from starvation and saved American farmers $400 million.

McFadden, a diminutive and humble man, was never one for the spotlight. He received many awards in the years following Hope's arrival and tried to decline nearly every single one of them. For the awards he did accept, he used his acceptance speeches to recognize the work of the botanists and plant breeders that came before him.

In 1956, McFadden died in his sleep at his home in College Station, Texas.

While not the most recognizable figure in South Dakota history, McFadden's work had an outsized impact on the state, region, country and world — and it is still being felt today. Many of the most widely planted wheat varieties today contain Hope's genetic material.

On ÈÕ±¾avÊÓƵ' campus, McFadden's legacy lives on. Next spring, the university will install a McFadden sculpture to inspire students, staff and faculty for generations to come.