Evolution made to order : plant breeding and technological innovation in twentieth-century America / Helen Anne Curry.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Mutation theories -- An unsolved problem -- Speeding up evolution -- X-rays in the lab and field -- Industrial evolution -- Artificial tetraploidy -- Evolution to order -- Better evolution through chemistry -- Tinkering technologists -- The flower manufacturers -- Radiation revisited -- Mutation politics -- An atomic-age experiment station -- Atomic gardens -- The peaceful atom in global agriculture.

Print version record.

In the mid-20th century, American plant breeders, frustrated by their dependence on natural variation in creating new crops and flowers, eagerly sought technologies that could extend human control over nature. Their search led them to celebrate a series of strange tools: an x-ray beam directed at dormant seeds, a drop of chromosome-altering colchicine on a flower bud, and a piece of radioactive cobalt in a field of growing crops. According to scientific and popular reports of the time, these mutation-inducing methods would generate variation on demand, in turn allowing breeders to genetically engineer crops and flowers to order. Creating a new crop or flower would soon be as straightforward as innovating any other modern industrial product. 'In Evolution Made to Order', Helen Anne Curry traces the history of America's pursuit of tools that could speed up evolution.

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