Triticale

Such crosses occasionally occur naturally in the field, but the resulting hybrids are always sterile. Nevertheless, the prospect was attractive: a cereal with the superior bread-making properties of wheat and the hardiness of rye. Wilson’s plants were also sterile; but in 1891 a German, Rimpau, managed to produce partly fertile side shoots on an otherwise sterile plant. It was not until the 1930s that further progress was made. By this time more was known about genetics, in particular concerning the experimental doubling of chromosome numbers in plants, which could be done by treating them with the chemical colchicine.