PROFILE: Glenn W. Burton
| The Voice | News Releases | Hot Topics | In the News |
| Talking on Talk Shows | Engaging Public Support | NSEA Advertising |
Glenn W. Burton: Agronomist thought to have saved millions from starvation
Copyright © 2006 by E. A. KralOne of the world's foremost agricultural scientists was Glenn W. Burton, whose efforts in plant genetics from 1936 to the 1990s with colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Georgia at Tifton helped "feed the hungry, protect and beautify the environment, and provide recreation for millions."
His initial responsibility was improving the breeds of grasses used by farmers in the South. It was in 1943, after seven years of experimenting with more than 5,000 varieties, that he developed Coastal bermuda grass which enabled farmers to increase cattle production through grazing year-round and at the same time reduce soil erosion far better than common bermuda grasses.
Eventually, Burton developed more than 20 varieties of forage grasses, and today more than 10 million acres of pasture land from the Carolinas to central Texas have been planted with his grasses, notably the Coastal bermuda variety. A more recent improvement is Tifton 85, which covers more than one million acres in Brazil, where farmers raise many more cattle than in the U.S.
In 1946, he pioneered "golf grass" research after receiving encouragement and a grant from the United States Golf Association. From 1952, he perfected several bermuda turf grasses used on athletic fields, lawns, and golf courses. And his Tifton 419 released in 1960 is the most widely used bermuda grass in the world at the present time for such purposes.
Perhaps Burton's development of pearl millet in 1956 was his most significant research accomplishment. It allowed for development of hybrids that afforded almost 90 percent increased yield over the open-pollinated varieties then in use.
After these hybrids were first used in India, some 3 1/2 million tons were produced per year, but by 1970, its annual millet output increased to 8 million tons. This huge rise in India's food production is thought to have saved millions of people from starvation.
Throughout Burton's career, he published over 750 papers and book chapters, and credited the time he devoted to researching and answering questions from local farmers and producers as most valuable in transferring his grass research into practical application on the farms everywhere.
Of the more than 75 honors accorded him by organizations and institutions, his election in 1975 to the National Academy of Sciences was probably the most prestigious. Notable, too, was the John Scott Award in 1957, granted by the city of Philadelphia for Burton's "invention of coastal bermuda grass." Since 1834, it has been awarded to many inventors, including Thomas Edison, Madame Curie, the Wright Brothers, and Jonas Salk. Also significant was the National Medal of Science awarded in 1982, and induction into the Agricultural Research Service Science Hall of Fame in 1987.
His immortality was assured by an entry on his career in Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists, Vol 1 (Gale, 1995).
Born in 1910 near Clatonia, Gage County, Nebraska, an only child of Joseph and Nellie Rittenburg Burton, he relocated with his parents in 1915 to a farm near Bartley, a town about 20 miles east of McCook in Red Willow County.
There he helped his father with horse-drawn implements, and he conducted chores before and after school so he could participate in sports at Bartley High School, where he graduated in 1927.
Glenn W. Burton earned his bachelor's degree in 1932 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he originally majored in agricultural education, but became an agronomist after encouragement from Professor F. D. Keim. Then he earned his master's and doctorate from Rutgers University in New Jersey, before he and his wife relocated to Tifton, Georgia, where they raised five children.
Burton died at the age of 95 on November 22, 2005, at Tifton, Georgia, and was survived by five children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. His wife Helen Jeffryes Burton preceded him in death in 1995. For a lengthy obituary, see November 24, 2005 Tifton Gazette.
For more information, consult "900 Famous Nebraskans" on the Internet at www.nsea.org or www.beatricene.com/gagecountymuseum or www.nebpress.com.
