Derald Langham
American geneticist
Derald George Langham (May 27, 1913 – May 10, 1991) was an American agricultural geneticist, sesame researcher, and founder of the Genesa Foundation.
He is known as the "father of sesame" in the Western Hemisphere for his basic research on the genetics of sesame. Most of the sesame lines grown in the Americas came from his breeding work. Sesame plants are a rich source of vitamins and minerals, and Langham focused on cross-breeding the plant into more fruitful versions. He also attempted to look for other uses of sesame beyond a mere food source.
Derald Langham is less known for his genetic work in corn and beans. The Rockefeller Institute in Mexico incorporated his varieties into their materials and his genes are carried on in almost every corn hybrid used in the world.
Family and education
He was born on a 160-acre (65-hectare) farm in Polk City, Iowa, where his interest in plants and animals was piqued at an early age.
Langham attended Iowa State College and studied agronomy, where he met the head of the genetics department, Dr. Ernest W. Lindstrom.
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This entry incorporates text from “Derald Langham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.