History
In 1926, farm journal editor and future U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, along with a group of Des Moines, Iowa businessmen, founded the "Hi-Bred Corn Company". At the time, most corn farmers saved part of the seed from the harvest and used this to plant a crop the following year. Wallace had been experimenting with hybridization of corn and became convinced that hybrid seed corn would become important. His vision proved accurate; by 1940 more than 90 percent of the corn raised in North America was raised from hybrid seed. During the first year of production, the company produced 1000 bushels of seed and sold 650 bushels.
Read more about this topic: Pioneer Hi-Bred
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