Luther Burbank

Luther Burbank ( born March 7, 1849 in Lancaster, Massachusetts, † April 11, 1926 in Santa Rosa, California ) was an American plant breeder who bred several hundred new fruit, vegetable and ornamental varieties. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Burbank ".

Biography

Luther Burbank was born on March 7, 1849 on a farm in the village of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, USA.

Childhood and education

At an early age he showed great interest in both nature and in art. These interests were encouraged by his uncle, a department manager at a Boston museum, and his friend, a native of Switzerland, American naturalist Louis Agassiz.

Career

Under the influence of Charles Darwin's Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Burbank made ​​it his task to read better plants by selection and to develop new varieties by crossing.

His first commercial success was based on more or less randomly by selection: In 1871, he found a potato crop and sowed the seeds of 23 contained therein. One of the plants was very productive, with large, firm potatoes. He sold the rights to the potato for $ 150 in 1875 to pay for a move to California. In Santa Rosa, where already three of his brothers had settled, he founded a nursery with a greenhouse and experimental plots.

Success

Luther Burbank was incredibly popular in his day, a star in the field of botany and plant breeding. He was considered a " magician" in the plant. Many famous personalities of his time, such as Thomas Edison, visited him and his farm. Even today, the verb "to burbank " as much as changing and improving of plants. The potato variety " Burbank " is one of the most important varieties on the U.S. market.

Rejection

Luther Burbank had never made ​​a secret of his liberal views. But a newspaper interview in 1926, in which he explicitly told you not to believe in an immortal soul that led to a global outcry. Burbank got some approval, but was also showered with hate mail. His friends claimed that the grief and dealing with these religious zealots have led to his quick physical decline and, considering his condition only a few months earlier early death.

Work of Luther Burbank

He worked massively parallel and on a large scale. To create a new variety he conducted dozens of crosses, some with plants he had them sent from all over the world.

Usually ran up to 3000 experiments with several million plants in parallel. During his work on plums he tested about 30,000 new varieties.

Criticism and effect

Burbank's work and his success led to the introduction of a law on the patentability of plant varieties in 1930. Up to this time there was no protection for growers against others their cultivars propagated and sold.

Others

A separate chapter in the autobiography of Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda entitled Luther Burbank, a saint in the midst of Roses. The Yogi met the researchers before 1924 know in California and both consider themselves very much.

Works (selection)

  • . The Training of the Human Plant, " New York: The Century Co., 1907 Originally published in 1906
  • Harvest of the Years. 332 S. Kessinger Publishing 2003
  • How Plants Are Trained to Work for Man. University Press of the Pacific 2001 Flowers, 488 S.
  • Fruit Improvement, 456 S.
  • Gardening, 456 pp.
  • Grafting and Budding, 456 pp.
  • Plant Breeding, 456 pp.
  • Small Fruits, 488 pp.
  • Useful Plants, 456 pp.
  • Trees, Biography, index, 520 pp.
International Plant Names Index Integrated Authority File
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