Stakman=s lecture had such an impact on Borlaug that he decided to study plant pathology under the professor=s direction. At Stakman=s urging, Borlaug remained at the University for post-graduate study. Working part-time as a forester , completed his M.S. in 1939, earning his Ph.D. in 1942 in the field of plant pathology. In his doctoral thesis, he discussed a fungal rot endemic to the flax plant. After graduating from college, Borlaug married Margaret G. Gibson on September 24, 1937. They had two children, a daughter, Norma Jean (Borlaug) Rhoda, and a son, William Gibson Borlaug.
Before Borlaug left graduate school, widespread use of chemical pesticides had begun. Paul Müller had already discovered , in 1939, that dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was a powerful insecticide. During World War II, the United States government made extensive use if DDT, especially in the military, and pushed hard to place agriculture on an industrial footing, with the development of new chemicals to control plant diseases and insects. In 1942, Borlaug went to E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in Wilmington, Delaware, to apply his expertise in plant pathology to determine the effects these new chemicals had on plants and their diseases.
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