A research initiative before its time

Ernest W. Lindstrom created the first genetics department at Iowa State. He headed the department for 26 years.
Ernest W. Lindstrom created the first genetics department at Iowa State. He headed the department for 26 years.

The prosperity of Iowa agriculture owes much to the development of hybrid corn. The robustness of hybrids is attributed to the phenomenon called hybrid vigor or heterosis. Scientists have been trying to figure out the molecular mechanism for hybrid vigor for the better part of a century.

In the mid-1930s as hybrid corn was becoming a feature in the Iowa landscape, Professor Ernest W. Lindstrom was conducting genetic experiments hoping to reveal the mechanisms responsible for heterosis.

Lindstrom came to Iowa State to create and lead a new genetics department. His interests centered on testing the hypothesis that dominant gene action explains why hybrids are larger than their inbred parents. He started by debunking an existing theory: that heterosis was nothing more than an initial advantage in embryo size and not due to the greater growth efficiency.

In a paper entitled “Genetic experiments on hybrid vigor in maize” in The American Naturalist (1935), Lindstrom presents experimental results in which the so-called initial growth advantage of hybrids was reduced by cutting them back above the growing point. When the hybrids grew back much bigger than their untouched parents, it was clear proof that that the plants had an inherent growth advantage. This was one of some 50 papers published by Lindstrom throughout his career.

Lindstrom served as the genetics department head for 26 years. For his in-depth knowledge of genetics research, he was recruited away from Iowa twice. In 1927, the Rockefeller Foundation invited him to Paris to assist the International Education Board in selecting researchers worthy of funding. It is said that this task made him realize how much he missed his own research. In 1944, Lindstrom spent a year establishing a genetics department at the National University of Medellin, Columbia, South America.

Lindstrom was highly sought after on campus. He conducted an extremely popular genetics seminar, served up a wealth of sound counsel to many commercial corn breeders and developed Lindstrom Long Ear (LLE) - the sources of ear length advancement in the modern inbred corn lines developed by Raymond F. Baker.

Seventy five years later, Iowa State plant scientists are carrying forward the work of Lindstrom—continuing the effort to understand the molecular mechanisms responsible for heterosis.

Modern technological advances have made new approaches possible. As part of the Plant Sciences Institute's Genomics Research Initiative, Patrick Schnable, initiative leader, and Dan Nettleton, professor in the Department of Statistics, have used microarrays or DNA chip technology to study the expression of thousands of genes in an F1 hybrid as compared to its inbred parents.

In 1937, Lindstrom became vice dean of the Graduate School while still maintaining his faculty responsibilities. In 1943, Iowa State President Charles Edwin Friley appointed Lindstrom to lead a committee for planning a maize museum. The museum never materialized, though records show a site on U.S. Highway 30 had been selected. But in many ways, Iowa agriculture is a living museum to corn.