Blast From The Past: November 2025

From The November 2000 Issue

The Beltsville Small White Turkey

A Thanksgiving Appreciation (From the Beltsville News issue of November 2000)

By Jim Butcher

The traditional roast turkey will hold center place at most Thanksgiving tables. Almost any turkey you buy traces its genetic history to the Beltsville Small White, a small turkey bred to have lots of white meat. Recognized as a new variety in 1951, the Beltsville Small White emerged from ten years of work by the late Stanley Marsden and others. Over the years the Small White has grown larger than Beltsville scientists designed it, but it still weighs in at the market at about nine pounds. The Beltsville Small White Turkey tom struts his stuff in a dated photo provided by USDA.