Nazareno Strampelli’s Green Revolution

Nazareno Strampelli (1866-1942) was the most important italian plant breeder during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Through the application of hybridization principles and mendelian genetics in his wheat breeding programme started in Rieti since 1903, the italian breeder created many short-strawed, rustresistant and early ripening wheat varieties which were very similar to the so-called "High Yielding Varieties", obtained in Mexico in the 1950’s by Norman Borlaug and widely distributed around the world during the Green Revolution era. After the Second world war, Strampelli’s wheat varieties (the real protagonists of the socalled "Battaglia del grano" promoted in Italy by the fascist regime in 1925) were rapidly and widely adopted among the main wheat-producing nations, playing a fundamental role in their breeding programmes as well as in the modern breeding approaches against the new emerging rust strains. Today, despite the dramatic role that Strampelli’s varieties played in the world wheat production has been widely demonstrated, the italian breeder is not adequately considered neither as the precursor of the Green Revolution, nor as an authentic scientist as well.

Keywords: Green Revolution, Wheat, Hybridization, Grain Battle, Breeding, Graniculture

• Il grano della discordia: il provvedimento Cappelli dell'Agcm e la sentenza San Carlo del Tribunale di Roma Serena Mariani, in AGRICOLTURA ISTITUZIONI MERCATI 2/2021 pp.133
  DOI: 10.3280/AIM2018-002008

Sergio Salvi, La "rivoluzione verde" di Nazareno Strampelli in "AGRICOLTURA ISTITUZIONI MERCATI " 3/2009, pp 107-121, DOI: 10.3280/AIM2009-003006