HR1551 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR1551 LRB099 24317 MST 52065 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives wish to recognize the 140th anniversary of the Morrow Plots at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and

WHEREAS, The Morrow Plots were established in 1876 and are located in the heart of the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois; they are the oldest continuous agricultural research fields in the United States and are predated only by the Rothamsted Field in England, which were established in 1843; the site was designated a National Historical Landmark by the federal government on September 12, 1968; and

WHEREAS, George E. Morrow, the first dean of the College of Agriculture, and Manley Miles, a professor of agriculture, were the visionaries behind the Morrow Plots; they planned to conduct experiments that would yield results suggestive to the practical farmer; and

WHEREAS, When the Morrow Plots were established, the United States was celebrating its centennial; farm wage rates in Illinois were $15 a month and corn sold for 30 cents a bushel; and

WHEREAS, In 1876, the average corn yield in Illinois was 30 bushels an acre, about one seventh of what corn yields are today, when fewer than 40 million people lived in the United States, over two-thirds of them on farms; and

WHEREAS, Only three of the original 10 plots remain in place today; however, the physical size and configuration of the three main plots have not changed since 1903; and

WHEREAS, Plot three has grown continuous corn since the original establishment of the Morrow Plots in 1876; and

WHEREAS, The two-year crop sequence study that started in 1876 continues today in plot four, with soybeans having replaced oats in rotation with corn during 1976; this rotation better reflected the change in farming practices taking place across the State of Illinois during that period; and

WHEREAS, Plot five was planted in a three-year rotation of corn, oats with alfalfa seeding, and a forage crop of alfalfa hay starting in 1904; and

WHEREAS, Data from the Morrow Plots represents more than 100 years of accumulated knowledge on the effect of both sound and unsound crop management practices on corn yield; and

WHEREAS, Most importantly, the plots have helped to establish the importance of crop rotation and fertilizer treatments in the modern agricultural system that has allowed increases in yields to feed an ever-increasing world population; and

WHEREAS, Important practices and the invaluable knowledge discovered at the Morrow Plots concerning crop rotation, good soil fertility, weed control, and much more have impacted agriculture across not only the State, but the country, and the entire world; and

WHEREAS, Respect for the historical significance of the Morrow Plots and their importance for future research was shown in 1966 by the University when the new undergraduate library was built underground to prevent the negative impact of a large shadow on the plots from a multilevel aboveground library building - "You can't throw shade on the corn"; and

WHEREAS, Future generations will benefit from the lessons learned at Morrow Plots and from the continuation of new, updated, and improved long-term experiments that the Morrow Plots have inspired; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we commend the Morrow Plots for 140 years of continuous operation, and we look forward to the next 140 years; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the Morrow Plots at the University of Illinois as a symbol of our esteem and respect.