Theodore A. Kiesselbach

Theodore Alexander Kiesselbach (1884 to 1964), fondly known as Mr. Corn, was an American agronomist, educator and major developer of corn hybrids who worked in Lincoln, Nebraska. Born at Shelby, Nebraska, he trained at the University of Nebraska under Charles Bessey, earning a bachelor's degree in 1908, a master's in 1912 and a doctorate in 1918, and joined its faculty as a field instructor in 1909. He became a professor in 1912 and stayed until he retired in 1952. In 1913 he developed the first hybrid corn variety in the western United States, and by the 1940s the hybrids he developed were widely adopted, accounting for 42 million dollars of farm income in Nebraska in 1949. That year he published The Structure and Reproduction of Corn, a reference work reprinted until at least 1998. He wrote or co-wrote over 140 articles.