Genetic Resources of Corn The genetic material for any crop
plant is extremely valuable. Before the early 20th century,
those genetic resources were contained in farmers' fields and
renewed each season when the crop grew and the seeds harvested.
The Virginia Gourdseed corn grown on George Washington's Mount
Vernon farm or the "criollo" corn that the Mayans grew in
Chiapas, Mexico were all part of the global storehouse for the
genes of corn. Development of Genetic Resource Conservation in
the US During the 19th century, the practice of developing and
maintaining particular varieties of crop plants became common.
In the United States, Congress created the Department of
Agriculture in 1862 "to procure, propagate, and distribute...new
and valuable seeds and plants". In 1901, the Office of Foreign
Seed and Plant Introduction was created in the Department of
Agriculture. Its mission was to find seeds and plant material
that could be useful to US agriculturalists. With the
rediscovery of Mendel's principles of genet