1987: Turkey

by Jim Bickal, Minnesota Public Radio

St. Paul, Minn. — When it comes to food, the trend these days is fresh, organic, and local. In 1987 however, the trend was on breeding bigger, better, and faster.

Science was beginning to make it possible to speed up the rate at which turkeys were bulking up. In this report, Jim Bickal talks to U of M turkey specialist Dr. Paul Waibel.

Waibel was a professor of animal science at the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, where he studied poultry genetics and helped refine feed to engineer birds that grow faster and have less fat.