Dr. Thorsten Schnurbusch, examining an ancient variety of "miracle wheat," with the unusual property of having a branching head with an average of 25% more seeds per head of wheat. He is hoping to find a way to interbreed it with other varieties with stalks that can support the heavy head, with good disease resistance, and baking qualities.
Schnurbusch works at the Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Research, a government-funded research facility with a collection of over 150,000 fertile seeds, the largest seed bank in the European Union. In 1900, German farms yielded an average of 1,200kg per hectare of grain. Now 8,000 kg per hectare is common, and the productivity gains have come from advances in fertilizer, mechanization, and developing plant varieties with shorter stalks so that more of the growth goes to the seeds.
