Historical Marker

Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Substation No. 12, Home of Hybrid Sorghums

Historical marker location:
Chillicothe, Texas
( From Chillicothe, take Route 91 south about 3 miles, then take Highway 392 south about 3 miles.)
Marker installed: 1971

Forage crop field station at which in 1909 (when situated 6 miles NE) was planted the United States' first sudan grass, a sorghum especially adaptable to semiarid regions. The United States Department of Agriculture had brought the seed from Khartum, Africa. Here ensued more than a half-century of sorghum breeding under supervision of A. B. Conner, J. R. Quinby, J. C. Stephens and other scientists, culminating in hybrid seed for more productive crops that revolutionized the agriculture of the Great Plains. (1971).