JONES, DAVID A. Dept. Botany, PO Box 118526, 220 Bartram Hall, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-8526. - Plant Genetics at Rothamstead, Cambridge and the "John Innes," 1856-1960.
In 1919, R.A.Fisher was hired to discover whether the accumulated
records of some 70 years of agricultural research at Rothamsted would
yield more information than had been possible in the absence of a
qualified statistician. It never fails to impress biology students -
and indeed statiticians - to learn, or be reminded - that the Analysis
of Variance, arguably the most powerful technique in statistical
analysis, was invented by Fisher to analyze field experiments, some of
which used different varieties of wheat, beans, clovers, grasses, and
mangel wurzels. The new techniques were soon recognized to be of
fundamental importance for determing the best designs for experiments
in basic research and Fisher, himself, used them to lay the foundation
of Biometrical Genetics. Similarly, much research on horticultural
plants at the John Innes Horticultural Institution yielded fundamental
genetical principles. Led by C.D.Darlington, mitosis and meiosis were
sorted out; breeding work with cherries and primroses forced study of
the gametophytic and sporophytic imcompatibility systems; attempts to
breed a yellow sweetpea were partly behind research on the genetics
and chemistry of flower pigments, this last being pioneering work in
chemotaxonomy and genecology. The 'John Innes' formulae for seeding
and potting composts were invented to overcome the inconsistent
germination of seeds and establisment of young plants. In 1944,
Fisher returned to Cambridge determined to start the first
undergraduate degree in Genetics in the UK. During his time there the
system of tristyly in Lythrum salicaria was clarified both
theoretically and by breeding work in Fisher's own garden; the Hfr
mating type in E. coli was discovered (by L. L.Cavalli-Sforza) and the
journal Heredity was founded by Fisher and Darlington - using their
own money to launch it. In the Botany School, initially by D.
G.Catcheside, the mating systems, mechanisims of recombination, gene
conversion and biochemical genetics of fungi were being studied.
Key words: British genetics, C. D. Darlington, Cambridge, John Innes, R. A. Fisher, Rothamstead