{"id":21376,"date":"2013-12-06T15:34:16","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T01:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=21376"},"modified":"2020-06-29T16:39:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T02:39:34","slug":"plant-breeder-known-for-corn-leaves-lasting-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/12\/06\/plant-breeder-known-for-corn-leaves-lasting-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Plant breeder known for corn leaves lasting legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Fv82-STDews\" title=\"Youtube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Corn developed over the last five decades by <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa<\/a> plant breeder <strong>James Brewbaker<\/strong> is feeding millions of people around the world. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Plant breeding is a wonderfully optimistic science because you do sometimes make these contributions,&rdquo; said Brewbaker. <\/p>\n<p>Brewbaker was hired by <abbr>UH<\/abbr>&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/site\/\">College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources<\/a> in 1961 and has spent much of his career breeding corn and other plants at <abbr>UH<\/abbr>&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/site\/locationdetails.aspx?id=ER-OWAIM\">Waim&#257;nalo Research Station<\/a>. He has banked seeds from thousands of varieties, which he crossbreeds for desirable traits, such as better flavor, disease resistance, high yield and ability to thrive in a specific environment. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We genetically modify,&rdquo; said Brewbaker. &ldquo;We borrow genes here and put them there.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_21381\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21381\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/brewbaker-tractor.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"328\" class=\"size-full wp-image-21381\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/brewbaker-tractor.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/brewbaker-tractor-260x213.jpg 260w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21381\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Brewbaker at <abbr>UH<\/abbr>&#8217;s Waim&#257;nalo Research Station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Thanks to <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>&#8217;s climate, Brewbaker, his students and fellow researchers can plant corn every day of the year and test new varieties. That allows researchers to study multiple generations of plants in a single year. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Everything goes faster and the problems we try to resolve just go like that,&rdquo; said Brewbaker. <\/p>\n<p>Among other accomplishments, Brewbaker was instrumental in developing the seed corn industry in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, now the state&#8217;s leading agricultural commodity, and has authored more than 280 publications on a variety of crops. His first book, <em>Agricultural Genetics<\/em>, has been translated into seven languages. Then there is his proudest achievement. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;My students have been my greatest joy&#8212;52 masters and doctorates,&rdquo; said Brewbaker and his students are currently working all over the world. &ldquo;You go to Thailand, they call me the grandfather of sweet corn. My student Pulan is the father.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Anticipating retirement as he nears his 90s, Brewbaker <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/12\/02\/plant-breeder-brewbaker-makes-1-million-gift-to-support-future-work\/\">established a million-dollar endowment for graduate students studying plant breeding<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I believe it is one of the best ways to spend the money I have saved,&rdquo; said Brewbaker. <\/p>\n<p>He is regularly being recognized for his lifetime of research, education and national and international service. Brewbaker says he plans to keep working in the cornfields of Waim&#257;nalo as long as he can. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I love my job. I love this absolutely beautiful place.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<h2>Additional <abbr>UH<\/abbr> News stories on Brewbaker<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/12\/02\/plant-breeder-brewbaker-makes-1-million-gift-to-support-future-work\/\">&ldquo;Plant breeder Brewbaker makes $1 million gift to support future work&rdquo;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/10\/07\/james-brewbaker-receives-crop-science-society-award\/\">&ldquo;James Brewbaker receives crop science society award&rdquo;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa plant breeder James Brewbaker establishes a million-dollar endowment for graduate students studying plant breeding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,12],"tags":[212,9],"class_list":["post-21376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-video","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21376"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21378,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21376\/revisions\/21378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}