PROCEEDINGS OF THE HAWAIIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE • • • THIRTY-SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING . 1960 - 1961 Published by the University of Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii, 1961 CONTENTS Page Presidential Address __________________________________________________________________________________________ 3 Annual Report ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 7 Program ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 15 Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 16 First Session ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 16 Final Session ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 18 Constitutional Amendment ______________________________________________________________________________ 24 Necrology ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 25 Contributors _________________________________________________ .. ______________________________________________________ 27 Membership ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 29 THE HAWAIIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE WAS ORGANIZED JULY 23, 1925. ITS OBJECTS ARE "THE PROMOTION OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE, PARTICULARLY AS RELATED TO HAWAII AND THE PACIFIC AREA." PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 1961 PLANT BREEDING TODAY John N. Warner! Five years ago, as his presidential address before store agricultural surpluses. Offhand this appears to this Academy, Dr. Willis Gortner delivered a memo­ be a curious anomaly and, as taxpayers, we have a rable message entitled "Biochemical Pathways to the right to raise questions as to the soundness of trying Infinitesimal." In his address, Dr. Gortner described to increase yields in an era of overproduction. It is new methods of biochemical analyses which enable only when we examine the world requirements for scientists to recognize and study minute quantities of increased food production today and, in fact, the pre­ matter and to relate them to their function in complex dictable needs of our own country in the years just biological systems. ahead, that the activity in question becomes justified. If we were going to dwell on the subject of modern In the first place it is impractical to consider cessation genetics this evening, we might well have considered of plant breeding until the need is more apparent and a title_similar to Dr. Gortner's. Recent advances in then step up the activity to meet a new demand. This genetics, in the area of chromosome and gene structure course of action is impractical both from the stand­ and gene action, might well have been described under point of maintenance of breeding stocks and main­ the title "Infinitesimal Pathways to Biochemical Func­ tenance of an adequate number of trained plant breed­ tions." For, indeed, modern geneticists are making ers. Also it is impossible from the standpoint of the tremendous strides in gaining an understanding of the time lag between the initiation of crossing work in a complex pathways through which the genes control breeding program and the final release and utilization life in all of its diverse forms. of improved varieties, often 10-20 years, or longer. The gene, a hypothetical unit of heredity, was well But consider for a moment the question of food understood, we thought, at the end of the first four deficits-or the problem of feeding the world. It is decades of this century. It was just that-a hypothetical said that over a third of the world's population of unit of heredity-which caused predictable things to three billion people is undernourished. Consider the happen in plants and animals. Today, modern geneti­ rate of world population increase-more than forty­ cists are no longer as sure of what the ultimate gene five million people per year. The world's population is or how it functions. Nevertheless, the classic con­ has approximately tripled in the last 110 years. In cept of a gene is useful, and is satisfactory from an other terms, it has been estimated that of the total operational standpoint. number of human beings born since the beginning of This divergence between those who are working to the Christian Era, and who survived to the age of five understand the gene and those who accept the opera­ years, one-half of this total population is alive today. tional concept of the gene is, in effect, the divergence So there doesn't seem to be room for dissension from between the geneticists and the breeders, both plant and the argument that the problem of feeding the world animal. Similar divergences have developed in other today, and in the future, is of vital concern. Even in disciplines between the fundamental and the applied the United States, with our current overproduction of scientists; between biochemistry and biophysics on the farm products, the population is increasing at the rate one hand and physiology on the other; between the of 1.7 per cent per year. This means our population, nuclear physicists on the one hand and the applied and presumably our consumption, will double in less chemists and physicists on the other. Those working than 44 years. At the same time we are currently losing on basic questions in their respective fields lead the a million acres, or 1,600 sq. mi. per year, to urban way to providing new insights into fundamentals, while expansion and associated highway construction, air­ on the operational level the applied scientists put to ports, reservoirs, etc. While not all of this area is practical use the new discoveries for the more direct farm land, something over half, say, 800 sq. mi. per benefit of mankind. year, represents agriculturally useful land that is being This evening we will focus for a short while on diverted to nonagricultural uses. one of these operational areas, that of plant breeding, Returning to the area of plant breeding, we might and explore briefly its present status and its future briefly review what has happened since the rediscovery prospects. of Mendel's laws in 1900 put plant breeding on a First of all we might raise the question as to why scientific basis. This is not to belittle the progress we should be devoting millions of dollars and preci­ made by plant breeders, or plant selectors, prior to ous scientific man-hours in this area of plant breeding lSenior Geneticist, Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association while we spend billions of dollars to accumulate and Experiment Station. 3 4 HAWAIIAN ACADEMY OF SCIE NCE 1900. Progress made by prehistoric man in domesti­ divided into two major areas :· first, those concerned cating crop plants from their wild relatives makes with maintaining present production levels and, sec­ the total crop improvement in historic times seem in­ ond, those concerned with achieving a break-through significant. To illustrate, consider the tremendous prog­ to new and higher levels. ress made in prehistoric times in the domestication Offhand, the first problem, that of maintaining pres­ of the small grains, maize, and sugar cane. In the ent yield levels, would seem to be out of the realm latter two cases the wild relatives are so different from of the plant breeder's concern, but not so. Having the domesticated forms that we are not even sure by produced an acceptable high-yielding variety, the plant what route domestication took place. Certainly, mod­ breeder must continue to work to keep production high em plant breeders would find it very difficult to create because of the constantly changing environment. The Zea mays and Saccharum ofJicinarum from the wild changing environment has many aspects: economic, species available today. agronomic, and biologic, to mention a few. Increasing Since the advent of Mendelism, the examples of crop economic pressures dictate constantly changing farm­ improvement in terms of yield, quality, disease resist­ ing methods and these, in tum, dictate new and specific ance, and agronomic suitability are many. Perhaps the requirements for crop plants. Here we might mention classic example is maize, where the adoption of hybrid the necessity to improve quality and to create plant corn not only increased per acre production by about types better adapted to more efficient kinds of mech­ 20 per cent over adapted open-pollinated varieties, anization. The agronomic environment also changes. but also reduced man-hour requirements per acre Urban and industrial requirements for land dictate through improvements in resistance to lodging and the shifting of farm areas to different environments stalk-rot, in ear placement and plant type, and in and to less productive soils, or at least different soils, adaptation to mechanized agriculture. Grain sorghum and this often requires new varieties. Depletion of is another spectacular example. When first introduced soil nutrients due to long-continued cropping, loss of into the United States about a hundred years ago, this topsoil or degradation of soil structure due to in­ tropical grass was confined to the warmer parts of the creased mechanization, may also dictate new varietal South and Southwest. The originally introduced forms requirements. These changing environmental factors grew taller than a man's head and had to be harvested present new challenges to the plant breeder even if he by hand. During the past