Jean Dufour

Jean Dufour (born September 6, 1860 in Lausanne , † December 16, 1903 in Yverdon ) was a Swiss scientist and professor at the University of Lausanne .

His parents were notary and national councilor Louis Dufour and Mathilde, née Dappels. In the summer of 1888 he married Rose Burnand, who died a year and a half before him.

Dufour studied botany at the universities of Lausanne and Zurich , from 1882 to 1855 he was a doctoral student under Carl Cramer (1831–1901) at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich . In between he completed internships in Würzburg and Strasbourg, where he researched functional plant anatomy and xylem transport . After returning to Zurich, he began doing research on chlorophyll and starch . In 1886, in connection with the phylloxera plague, he was appointed director of the Vaud wine-growing experimental station, and in 1890 he was ao. Professor and appointed cantonal phylloxer commissioner. He was also successfully active against downy mildew , the group of grape moths and rotten mold with plant physiological interventions, which were also copied abroad.

He wrote numerous specialist articles on this topic, for example the report “Notice sur quelques maladies de la vigne: le black-rot, le coître et le mildiou de grappes”, published in 1888, which was considered a standard work for many years. In contrast to academic research, the practical approach, as introduced by Dufour, is considered particularly successful. In an obituary it says: Dans ces travaux si divers, quoique tendant à un même objectif, J. Dufour chercha toujours […] à se mettre en relation aussi étroite, also continue que possible avec les praticiens qui devaient utiliser les résultats de ses travaux . Loin de s'enfermer dans son laboratoire et ses champs d'essais, et de pontifier du haut de sa science, il se mit d'emblée en contact avec le vigneron, et il lui demanda une collaboration qui ne lui fut jamais refusée et qui , nous l'espérons, continuera à s'établir à l'avenir. The massive problems that Swiss viticulture faced before the turn of the century made work in practice-oriented work in contrast to pure academic teaching particularly attractive, so that Dufour gave up his appointment at the University of Lausanne after a few years.

During his activities in the research area, Dufour and Hermann Müller (Müller-Thurgau), who was ten years older, supported each other.

Dufour took action against grape moth, hayworm and sour worm with the natural insecticide pyrethrum . In his motto Mémoires sur le ver destructeur de la grappe , he described the use of the powdery pyrethrum, which in dissolved form only needed to be directed onto the inflorescences and not onto the entire grapevine. For this he developed hand-held spraying devices with the two French companies Vermorel and Japy , which came on the market as early as 1891. As early as 1889, Dufour had advertised almost unsuccessfully that the Bordeaux broth , which was successful against downy mildew, should also be used against the Colorado beetle . However, the small-scale Swiss agriculture was unsuitable for this.

Dufour's predecessor as professor at the University of Lausanne was Jean Balthasar Schnetzler ; his successor after his early demise in 1907 was the entomologist Henry Faes , with whom he had previously worked closely.

Works (selection)

• Le mildiou et son traitement , 1888
• La situation phylloxérique du canton de Genève: report adressé au Département fédéral de l'agriculture , 1893
• Guide du vigneron dans la lutte contre le phylloxera , 1898
• Le traitement cultural des vigne phylloxérées au sulfure de carbone , 1900

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rootsweb Genealogy
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Lukas Straumann: Useful pests. Applied entomology, chemical industry and agricultural policy in Switzerland 1874–1952 , Chronos Verlag Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0695-0
3. ↑ Ernest Chuard and Ernest Wilczek: Prof. Dr. Jean Dufour. 1860–1903 , in: Negotiations of the Swiss Natural Research Society 87 (1904), pp. IX – X

Web links

• Paul-Emile Pilet: Jean Dufour. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .