science · 05 December 1864 · 160 years ago
birth
Born 5 Dec 1864; died 31 Mar 1945 at age 80.
U.S. botanist and agricultural biologist who was one of the first and most distinguished of American plant pathologists. Jones began his career at a time when his specialty, plant pathology, was emerging as an offshoot of mycology, plant therapeutics, and bacteriology. He was always on the research frontier of each new development, and he has been credited with initiating interest in the environmental aspects of plant pathology. He pioneered in the use of Bordeaux mixture in the US. He began what became a 20-year experimental program of spraying various mixtures on different varieties of potatoes. For the Department of Agriculture he searched in Europe for disease-resistant potatoes. He also carried out fundamental studies on the bacterial soft rot of carrots and other vegetables. Although his work tended to focus on the diseases of economically important plants, the results were also contributions to basic science. His studies made possible a much greater control of potato diseases and a resulting increase in yield.
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