Jack Kraft's struggle to achieve scientific excellence made him a driven, antisocial and myopic genius, but he was still sought after by the agricultural industry for his creative ingenuity. Ostracized by his family, the damaged young man become a world-renowned horticultural professor who aspired to create the most important and dynamic seed the world has ever known.

A mammoth agricultural corporation gives him the largest research grant in history to develop a dream seed. The search leads professor Kraft and a cadre of graduate students and his university into battles with the mammoth agricultural corporation and the resulting "super seed" turns out to have fascinating potential as well as dangerous properties. His desire to provide food for the world also contains the potential to end it.