Elvin C. Stakman

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Elvin C. Stakman

Elvin Charles Stakman (born May 17, 1885 in Algoma , Wisconsin , † January 22, 1979 in St. Paul , Minnesota ) was an American plant pathologist and mycologist . His botanical-mycological author's abbreviation is " Stakman ".

Life

Stakman studied from 1902 at the University of Minnesota (including botany and German studies) with a bachelor's degree in 1906. Then he was a teacher in Minnesota. In 1909 he became an assistant plant pathology assistant at the University of Minnesota, received his master’s degree in 1910, and received his doctorate in 1913 on grain rust . He then became a professor at the university and headed the plant pathology department from 1940 until his retirement in 1953.

Stakman was a leading expert on black grain rust and other fungal diseases in plants. In his dissertation, he refuted the then common hypothesis that grain rust and similar fungal diseases had transitional hosts in the form of other plant species. At the time, it was often assumed that a species of fungus that attacked rice, for example, could become a fungal disease for wheat through the attack on barley, which would have made it very difficult to breed resistant varieties. From 1918 he organized campaigns to eradicate barberries in the Midwest, which were considered hosts for the grain rust. Stakman found financiers and secured government support, and the campaign, which lasted into the 1950s, was also successful as a means of stopping grain rust epidemics.

He demonstrated that the spores of the grain rust spread through air currents by catching them on airplane wings during overflights. Stakman also endeavored to breed grains that were more resistant to rust.

His graduate students included Margaret Newton and Norman Borlaug . He had students from all over the world and was visiting professor in Halle in 1930/31 (where he taught in German) and he was also several times visiting professor in Mexico (where he taught in Spanish), partly on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, for which he had previously worked in 1941 Report on the prospects of this form of collaboration in research and teaching. Further initiatives for agricultural research centers in South America, India and the Philippines followed.

He had been married to the mycologist Louise Jensen since 1917 (who died in 1962).

Honors

In 1925 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society . In 1949 he was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . Stakman has received multiple honorary doctorates (including Halle, Yale, Cambridge).

In 1957 he was awarded the Otto Appel Memorial Coin .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stakman, Elvin Charles (1885–1979) in the International Plant Names Index , accessed August 25, 2015
  2. ↑ Member entry of Elvin Charles Stakman at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on November 13, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Stakman, Elvin C.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stakman, Elvin Charles (full name); Stakman (botanical-mycological author abbreviation)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American plant pathologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Algoma , Wisconsin
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1979
Place of death St. Paul , Minnesota