Naomi Chapman Woodroof

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Naomi Chapman Woodroof (born February 5, 1900 in Idaho , † January 4, 1989 in Spalding County , Georgia ) was an American phytopathologist . She was among the first two women in America to graduate with a degree in agriculture. She was the first graduate of the University of Idaho's College of Agriculture and the first female scientist at the Georgia Experiment Station and the Coastal Plain Experiment Station.

life and work

Chapman Woodroof worked on her parents' sheep and cattle farm in Idaho as a child and rowed the Snake River every day to go to school. After graduating from the University of Idaho with a degree in animal husbandry, she couldn't find jobs for women in the field and then went on to study plant pathology. In 1924 she received a masters degree from the University of Idaho .

Although the University of Georgia and other southern universities did not accept women as students or faculties, the Georgia Experiment Station in Griffin did not have such guidelines. She did research there as an assistant biologist and her first task was to work on the root disease of the cotton seedlings. She identified them and developed a method to combat them. She was then hired to work on a pecan project. There she met her future husband, Jasper "Guy" Woodroof, and the two of them began researching pecans together. Specifically, they looked for ways to reduce disease and published several articles on the growth and development of the pecan root. After marriage, Chapman Woodroof raised their three children and turned down a doctoral scholarship from the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis , Missouri , to help her husband with his doctorate in Michigan . When he was named the first president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in 1933, they moved to Tifton, Georgia , where she was re-employed by the University of Georgia. She published research on peanut leaf spot disease here and founded the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Georgia at the Coastal Plain Experiment Station. She developed new peanut varieties and disease control methods that resulted in a five-fold increase in peanut yields and played an important role in the transition from peanuts used as pig feed to a food crop for human consumption, which changed the peanut industry, and not just in Georgia.

After her retirement in 1967, she and her husband made extensive trips to other countries, where they advised on increasing yields, combating disease, processing, packaging, storing and shipping food. In the 1970s, the couple visited China as part of the People-to-People program. She lectured on peanuts during that trip. In Argentina , they worked with farmers to identify the best ways to ship pears, and in Russia, they worked with farming groups to optimize the transportation of leafy vegetables by truck and train.

Awards

Chapman Woodroof was the first woman to be inducted into the Georgia Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1997 and on the Honor Roll of Distinguished Georgia Citizens. On what is now the University of Georgia’s Griffin campus, the pavilion that displayed Georgia’s agricultural products during the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics continues to be the Naomi Chapman Woodroof Agricultural Pavilion.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Chapman Woodroof, Naomi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American phytopathologist
DATE OF BIRTH 5th February 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Idaho
DATE OF DEATH 4th January 1989
Place of death Spalding County