b'MOST FAMOUSPLANT BREEDERSLUTHER BURBANK (18491926)U.S. PLANT BREEDER Burbank was reared on a farm and received little more than a high school education. He was very interested in the works of Charles Darwin. At a young age he started a lifelong plant-breeding career. One of his earliest achievements is the Burbank potato variety. The later variety Russet Burbank is a mutation (or sport) of the cultivar Burbank.He sold the rights to the potato for $150 and used that as travel fare to California, where he settled in Santa Rosa and established a nursery garden, a greenhouse, and experimental farms that were to become famous throughout the world. LOUIS DE VILMORIN (1816-1860) Often in his breeding, he made multiple crosses of foreign and native germplasm. FRENCH PLANT BREEDER He also produced seedlings which were subsequently grafted onto fully developed Vilmorin was founded as a plant andplants to allow for a relatively quick appraisal of the hybrid characteristics. He seed boutique in 1743 by seed experthad a talent for keen observation and often immediately recognized desirable Claude Geoffroy and her husband Pierrecharacteristics. This allowed Burbank to quickly select useful new varieties. Andrieux, the chief seed supplier andBurbank developed more than 800 new strains and varieties of plants, including 113 botanist to King Louis XV. In 1774, theirvarieties of plums, 20 of which are still commercially important, 10 commercial varieties daughter married botany enthusiastof berries, and more than 50 varieties of lilies.Philippe-Victoire Levque de Vilmorin (1746-1804). Together, they created the company Vilmorin-Andrieux. The Vilmorin company producedFERDINAND VON LOCHOW (1849 - 1924)GERMAN PLANT BREEDERthe first seed catalogue for farmersWith the drive to make the family-owned and academics. In the long history ofagricultural manor in Petkus more the Vilmorin family, the most prominentprofitable, he devoted his entire life scientific figure was certainly Louis deto increasing yields on the poor soils Vilmorin. He formulated a small numberof the estate. After initial agricultural of articles on plant breeding and a majorcultivation experiments, he decided part of the companys success can beto start systematic breeding of rye traced to the crucial work on selectionin 1881. While other breeders at that and heredity carried out by him in thetime selected mainly for individual 1850s. In 1856, he published Note on thetraits such as large grains, Lochows Creation of a New Race of Beetroot andstandard for selecting good individual Considerations on Heredity in Plants,plants was a combination of various establishing the theoretical groundworktraits such as winter hardiness, a full for the modern seed-breeding industry. spike and uniformly large and round From the middle of the 19th century,grains. The Petkus winter rye bred in this family-owned company was amongthis way already showed a remarkable the most important seed companies insuperiority in yield of up to 11 per cent compared to the reference varieties in the the world, particularly for cereals.variety trials started in 1891. The resulting increase in demand for Lochows varieties could only be achieved with the help of selected farmers who were hired for seed multiplication. In addition to rye, he also cultivated potatoes, oats and flax, and later even lucerne, maize and pine.EUROPEAN-SEED.COMIEUROPEAN SEED I 25'