616 NORMAN E. BORLAUG 



There is no time for complacency and preening over research progress. 

 I urge those of you who are engaged in breeding Pinus monticola Dougl . 

 and P. strobus L. to develop and release for commercial use a blister 

 rust-resistant seed source or cultivar as soon as possible. Time is 

 precious. There would be little place in the American market today 

 either for a superior model of the buggy (horse-drawn carriage) , or for 

 a cultivar of blight-resistant American chestnut, Castanea dentata (Marsh) 

 Borkh. The need for both has disappeared. These voids have been filled 

 by the gas-propelled automobile and the native oaks, respectively. It 

 therefore behooves all of you who have developed rust-resistant pine 

 varieties - even though they are not perfect - to put them into use in 

 our forests as soon as possible. Unless you do you will be trying to 

 promote the use of an obsolete species 20 years from now. Time and again 

 I have seen ultra-cautious wheat breeders test and retest promising 

 wheat lines until they became obsolete. The main contribution of such 

 a frustrated breeder is to help further expand the all -too-common sterile 

 research bureaucracies. Don't let it happen to forestry breeding programs 



THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS FOR AN EFFECTIVE BREEDING PROGRAM 



I think we all agree that it is absolutely necessary to maintain 

 the right balance between fundamental (basic) and applied research if 

 the forest tree breeding programs are to be kept viable and productive. 

 Beware, however, of falling into the trap which has swallowed up many of 

 our cereal breeding programs, namely that of unconsciously equating 

 fundamental research with useless research. The fundamental research in 

 forest genetics that is justifiable should be relative to the continuing 

 progress of the breeding program. Consequently, almost always the 

 fundamental research worth doing will be that which is identified by a 

 scientist who is deeply involved and frustrated by a barrier to progress 

 that he has encountered in the applied aspects of the program. Applied 

 research should never be regarded as a "nasty or dirty word" as is so 

 often the base today in many of our over-sophisticated research programs, 

 even though it is being carried out by foresters with sweat on their 

 brows and pitch on their hands. If such snobbishness prevails the 

 breeding programs will wither (Borlaug, 1968). 



I agree wholeheartedly with the comment that was made this after- 

 noon by Prof. Warren Pope "--that you should avoid unnecessary over- 

 sophistication in research programs designed to breed rust-resistant 

 pines." Cronartium ribicola J.C. Fisch. ex Rabenh. will not respect 

 highly sophisticated plans which threaten its survival, if they ignore 

 the genetic variability of the rust. The pathogen will then respond by 

 circumventing the intended barrier to further frustrate the scientist. 

 It has survived the quirks of nature over millions of years of tumultous 

 geologic and ecologic changes and it will not be pushed into extinction 

 by a few either oversophisticated or dirty-handed scientists. 



Nor would I advocate the unwise use of inadequate scientific data 

 tfhich is fed into the latest model computer to give it scientific 

 ;anctification. This is a poor substitute for reliable data developed 

 :rom critical observations of large populations of seedlings or trees, 



ained with sweat from the scientist's brow, interpreted by that rare 

 ommodity - common sense, and even, if and when necessary, tabulated and 

 summarized by hand. 



