Biographical Memoirs Volume 59 (1990) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
William Henry Chandler
William Henry Chandler
Pages 86-115
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 87... ...
In addition to advancing the field of horticulture generally, Chandler helped elucidate the mechanism by which frost kills plant tissue. He was the cocliscoverer of the fact that zinc deficiency causes a number of physiological disorders, including little leaf and mottle leaf.
|
From page 88... ...
hybrids of temperate zone trees that grow, flower, and produce fruits satisfactorily in climates with mild winters. The university community, experiment station workers, and extension staff all valued ChandIer's ideas on research, teaching, and communicating results.
|
From page 89... ...
For his doctoral dissertation topic he elected to study the killing of plant tissue by low temperature, a major problem in agriculture in Missouri as well as in many other regions, which continued to interest him throughout later appointments as assistant ~1906-1908) , instructor ~~908-l909)
|
From page 90... ...
After delivering a halfdozen lectures, he dismissed the class for the rest of the semester, saying that he had covered all that was known about the subject that was backed by evidence. Chandler insisted that the Homology program be related to plant physiology and the basic sciences, arguing that preparation for trees research shouIc!
|
From page 91... ...
He enjoyed his clearings with members of the general faculty on campus and life in the small, charming community of Ithaca. During this period, he also established his professional standing as the pomologist best able to analyze and understand the complex responses of fruit trees.
|
From page 92... ...
In this atmosphere, Chandler investigated physiological disorders known as "little leaf" in peaches, "rosette" in apples and pears, and "mottle leaf" in citrus. His training in both horticulture and plant chemistry enabled him to identify a zinc deficiency as the cause of all of these disorders, thereby solving a problem that had baffled fruit growers since the beginning of the century.
|
From page 93... ...
As assistant dean, ChandIer's function was to harmonize relations between the Los Angeles and Riverside Departments of the College and to strengthen UCLAs program in plant science. He also identified profitable directions for research in plant biology within the constraints imposed by field work on a campus in an urban setting.
|
From page 94... ...
William Henry Chandler was awarded many honors during his lifetime. He was elected president of the American Society for Horticultural Science in ~ 92 I, member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1943, and Faculty Research Lecturer at UCLA in 1944.
|
From page 95... ...
Death by Freezing Chandler was searching for the mechanism of cellular death by freezing. The killing of plant tissue by low temperature had been the subject of his dissertation at the University of Missouri, while in California he had been attracted to the problem of why certain fruit trees required these same chilling temperatures to grow.
|
From page 96... ...
He further observed that above-ground portions of a tree were more resistant than roots; that flower buds, generally more sensitive than vegetative bucts, were less sensitive when trees were not fully mature; that resistance diminished in some species whose flower buds reached an advanced stage of ctifferentiation by the beginning of winter. With great precision, he described how frost resistance developecI, singling out two ways "maturing" and "hardening" deciduous trees and shrubs became resistant to cold.
|
From page 97... ...
Well aware of the variety of centuries-old opinions on the subject, he compiled a list of established facts regarding plant death by freezing. Foremost was the phenomenon of ice formation—in tender tissue primarily within cells and, in cold-resistant material, in intercellular spaces subjected to relatively slow temperature fall (the case during a normal cold wave)
|
From page 98... ...
The Rest Period When he moved to California, ChancIler's concern with low temperature as a limiting factor in the growth of fruit trees took a different turn rather causing losses from freezing, low temperatures in fall and winter were necessary to some California plants if they were to develop normal shoot and flower buds the subsequent spring. In a subtropical as opposed to a harsh climate, the limiting factor for growing apples, pears, apricots, peaches, and plums was the absence of sufficient clays at moderately low temperatures to "break
|
From page 99... ...
To demonstrate his point, ChancIler used the striking example of a Northern Spy apple tree in Berkeley that had experienced a rest period in which no buds grew for two seasons. Yet, ChancIler maintained, if the same tree had been put at 5°C in the fall of the first year, its rest period could have been reduced from two years to six months.
|
From page 100... ...
Seeking the cause of the rest period in trees, Chandler suggested that a hormonal substance might be involved and cited changes in ether-extractable auxins in buds upon emergence from the rest. Treatments with rest-breaking substances such as ethylene chIorhydrin tended to reduce the auxin levels in plant tissue.
|
From page 101... ...
Cognizant of these clifficulties, Chandler designed a new approach to field testing with fruit trees. Shortly after he arrived in California, orchards in a variety of climatic zones both inland and along the entire Pacific Coast suffered great losses from a tree disease known since the beginning of the century.
|
From page 102... ...
Moderately affected pome and stone fruits may live for many years producing fruit of inferior quality and yield. In some soils trees grow well for the first few years but then develop symptoms rapidly and die.
|
From page 103... ...
Trees cured of zinc deficiency symptoms by these direct methods, moreover, remained healthy for six years or more after a single application, though with certain citrus and stone-fruit trees, spraying trees with a zinc suIphate solution got the earliest beneficial results. Chandler favored the idea that zinc, a nutrient required
|
From page 104... ...
with the position of the university in society, the role of the investigator and teacher in agricultural schools, and the responsibilities of scientists—both as citizens and as members of the human race. Many of these opinions were delivered in speeches to meetings of faculty, students, extension workers, and fruit growers.
|
From page 105... ...
Chandler's own work, for instance, depended on that of those brave, "determined souls" of the Dark Ages who recorded unorthodox findings at their own peril. From this historical view of communication's significance to science, Chandler particularly emphasized precise and careful reporting as essential to the great cooperative enterprise of learning.
|
From page 106... ...
In real life, according to Chandler, farmers "harassed by a whole range of nature's reactions" posed chastening questions to horticultural researchers. Yet attempts to solve a problem with fruit trees required the convergence of several disciplines, and those who "discovered" a practical remedy might be no more deserving of credit than the many earlier researchers whose earlier experiences had suggested the solution.
|
From page 107... ...
Chandler expressed his faith in the Tree of Knowleclge anct in humankind in the following words: "The God of Nature reveals his laws, I believe, very rarely to the propagandist or to the pompous, or even to the merely zealous, but rather to him who trains diligently in the technique and the records of a system of knowledge, who records his own observations clearly and briefly for the benefit of all workers, who reviews and reorganizes his knowledge frequently in the light of new discoveries, who consults as frequently as possible with workers in his field and related fields, hoping for a vision that
|
From page 108... ...
Because of this reserve of dormant buds a tree is more dependable in a destructive world. It can be broken to pieces pretty badly and will grow new parts to replace the lost ones.
|
From page 109... ...
thrice since then far over the sea Have ~ journeyed alone to my old oak tree And silently sat in its brotherly shade Anct ~ felt no longer alone and afraid; ~ was filled with strength of its brawny-ribbed bole And the leaves sIow-whispered their peace in my soul."
|
From page 110... ...
Bull., 102:237-90. 1913 The killing of plant tissue by low temperature.
|
From page 111... ...
1918 Influence of low temperature on fruit growing in New York State.
|
From page 112... ...
The effect of fruiting on the growth of Oldenburg apple trees.
|
From page 113... ...
Evidence as to how freezing kills plant tissue.
|
From page 114... ...
(Address before joint meeting of the Synapsis Club, Citrus Experiment Station, and the American Society for Horticultural Science. January 3, 1944, pp.
|
From page 115... ...
Plant Physiol., 10: 1-12. 196 Some studies of rest in apple trees.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.