Nobody really knows how the fungus Bipolaris maydis got into the cornfields of the United States. But by summer of 1970, it was there with a vengeance, inflicti

Nobody really knows how the fungus Bipolaris maydis got into the cornfields of the United States. But by summer of 1970, it was there with a vengeance, inflicting a disease called southern corn leaf blight, which causes stalks to wither and die. The South got hit first, then the disease spread through Tennessee and Kentucky before heading up into Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa — the heart of the Corn Belt.