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Early rise
Trofim Lysenko, the son of Denis and Oksana Lysenko, was born to a peasant family in Karlivka, Poltava Governorate (in present-day Poltava Oblast,Ukraine) and attended the Kiev Agricultural Institute (now the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine). In 1927, at 29 years of age, working at an agricultural experiment station in Azerbaijan, he embarked on the research that would lead to his 1928 paper on vernalization, which drew wide attention because of its potential practical implications for Soviet agriculture. Severe cold and lack of winter snow had destroyed many earlywinter-wheat seedlings. By treating wheat seeds with moisture as well as cold, Lysenko induced them to bear a crop when planted in spring.[5] Lysenko coined the term "Jarovization" to describe this chilling process, which he used to make the seeds of winter cereals behave like spring cereals ("Jarovoe"). However, this method had already been known by farmers since the 1800s, and had recently been discussed in detail by Gustav Gassner as "vernalization" (from the Latin "vernus", of the Spring).[6]

Lysenko's exaggerated claims for massively increased yields were based on plantings over a few hectares, and he further incorrectly claimed that the vernalized transformation could be inherited – i.e., that the offspring of a vernalized plant would themselves go on to flower more quickly, with the vernalization treatment.[7]

The conversion of winter wheat into spring wheat by Lysenko was not a new discovery. However, this work has been initially supported by Nikolai Vavilov,[8] who subsequently became one of Lysenko's critics [9] and a victim of political repressions against geneticists instigated by Lysenko.

Lysenko speaking at the Kremlin in 1935. At the back (left to right) areStanislav Kosior, Anastas Mikoyan,Andrei Andreyev and the Soviet leader,Joseph Stalin

Lysenko was praised in the Soviet newspaper Pravda for his claims to have discovered a method to fertilize fields without using fertilizers or minerals, and to have shown that a winter crop of peas could be grown in Azerbaijan, "turning the barren fields of the Transcaucasus green in winter, so that cattle will not perish from poor feeding, and the peasant Turk will live through the winter without trembling for tomorrow."[10]

Lysenko argued that there is not only competition, but also mutual assistance among individuals within a species, and that mutual assistance also exists between different species.

According to Lysenko,