Gold lost and found

As an astute researcher, the doctor grew curious about the Carolina Gold he’d read so much about. And he soon discovered that seed for the original plant was still being banked at the USDA’s Rice Research Institute in Texas. After Schulze made an inquiry with the USDA, an agronomist named Richard Bollock, who shared his curiosity regarding the plant, propagated the seed for him, sending him 14 pounds of the stuff, and he planted it. The following spring, the doctor harvested 64 pounds; by 1988, it was 10,000 pounds. Instead of selling the rice commercially, Schulze donated it to the Savannah Association for the Blind, which sold it to support operations.

We knew that, but nice to get an update.

Oh, and incidentally, the legendary Carolina Gold turns out to also be the source of a nifty new mechanism of resistance to a serious bacterial disease (h/t Lindsay Triplett).

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