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Show New Plant Varieties Aid Consumer Prices Consumer food budgets would be even higher without with-out the benefit of new crop varieties developed by plant breeders, says a University of Minnesota scientist. Herbert W. Johnson, head of the University's agronomy and plant genetics department, depart-ment, backs up his statement with some convincing facts: Extra yields from two new wheat and soybean varieties planted in his state alone last year meant about 276 million more loaves of bread for consumers and some 294,000 extra tons of high quality protein for producing poul- , try, pork and beef. ' This was due to about 6.4 million extra bushels Minnesota Min-nesota farmers harvested from Era wheat and about 14 million extra bushels from Corsoy soybeans, he explains. The new wheat variety has j been grown since 1970 and the new soybeans since 1967. Both were developed cooperatively co-operatively by the U.S. Department De-partment of Agriculture and state experiment stations. Era was developed in Minnesota, Min-nesota, and Corsoy in Iowa, but both are now grown in other states as well. In addition, Johnson says two more new soybean varie-, varie-, ties released this year will result in higher yields for areas with ; shorter growing seasons. He points out that public plant breeding programs and other agricultural research probably benefit consumers more than they do farmers. "A plentiful supply of food at reasonable prices is important im-portant to everyone," he notes, "and this is what plant breeding is about." |