Ira J. Condit was born November 18, 1883, in Jersey, Ohio, and graduated from Granville High School in 1900. He went on to Ohio State University, where he received his B.S. in 1905. After more than a decade working in various horticulture-related jobs, he returned to school, earning an M.S. from the University of California (1928) and a Ph.D. from Stanford University (1932).
Jersey is an unincorporated community in Licking County, in the U.S. state of Ohio.
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State or OSU, is a large public research university in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and the ninth university in Ohio with the Morrill Act of 1862, the university was originally known as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College (Mech). The college began with a focus on training students in various agricultural and mechanical disciplines but it developed into a comprehensive university under the direction of then-Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, and in 1878 the Ohio General Assembly passed a law changing the name to "The Ohio State University". It has since grown into the third-largest university campus in the United States. Along with its main campus in Columbus, Ohio State also operates regional campuses in Lima, Mansfield, Marion, Newark, and Wooster.
The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-system public higher education plan, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges System.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington or D.C., is the capital of the United States. Founded after the American Revolution as the seat of government of the newly independent country, Washington was named after George Washington, first President of the United States and Founding Father. As the seat of the United States federal government and several international organizations, Washington is an important world political capital. The city is also one of the most visited cities in the world, with more than 20 million tourists annually.
California Polytechnic State University is a public university in San Luis Obispo, California. It is one of two polytechnics in the California State University system.
In 1913, he moved to Berkeley, California, where he joined the College of Agriculture as an assistant professor in citriculture. He began to study subtropical fruit, subsequently publishing research reports on cultivation of the avocado (1915), carob (1919), oriental persimmon (1919), and loquat (1915). He kept track of avocado cultivars in the state, and these efforts, together with his avocado report, were instrumental in helping to establish the economically important California avocado industry.[1] For many years he also investigated problems arising from olive culture in California.
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. The 2010 census recorded a population of 112,580.
The avocado is a tree, long thought to have originated in South Central Mexico, classified as a member of the flowering plant family Lauraceae. The fruit of the plant, also called an avocado, is botanically a large berry containing a single large seed.
The persimmon is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus Diospyros. The most widely cultivated of these is the Asian or Japanese persimmon, Diospyros kaki. Diospyros is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-persimmon species of the genus are grown for ebony timber.
The edible fig was one of the important objects of Ira Condit's research.
Condit is best known today for his work on the large genus Ficus, which includes the edible fig. He wrote early reports on caprifigs (so-called inedible figs), the Kadota fig, and general fig culture.[2] After World War I, Condit took a job as horticulturist for the planned J.C. Forkner Fig Gardens, a combination fig ranch and real-estate development project in Fresno, California, that collapsed in the Great Depression. He later served for four years as horticulturist to the California Peach and Fig Growers Association. In 1923, the growers association sent him to Europe to learn about the fig industries of Algeria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, France, Spain and Portugal.
Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig (F. carica) is a temperate species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region, which has been widely cultivated from ancient times for its fruit, also referred to as figs. The fruit of most other species are also edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are extremely important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of considerable cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses.
Ficus carica is an Asian species of flowering plant in the mulberry family, known as the common fig. It is the source of the fruit also called the fig and as such is an important crop in those areas where it is grown commercially. Native to the Middle East and western Asia, it has been sought out and cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant. The species has become naturalized in scattered locations in Asia and North America.
The J.C. Forkner Fig Gardens (1883–1981) was an early 20th-century real estate development in Fresno, California, United States, that combined home ownership with fig farming.
In 1935, Condit joined the University of California Citrus Experiment Station in Riverside as Associate Professor and Associate Subtropical Horticulturist. He remained there for many years studying the morphology of the fig flower, fig nomenclature and climatic adaptation, and fig breeding, and he wrote cytological studies of over 30 Ficus species. Among those he studied were Ficus carica (the edible fig), F. benjamina (weeping fig) and F. elastica (rubber plant). In 1947 he published The Fig, his comprehensive monograph on the subject.
The University of California Citrus Experiment Station is the founding unit of the University of California, Riverside campus in Riverside, California, United States. The station contributed greatly to the cultivation of the orange and the overall agriculture industry in California. Established February 14, 1907, the station celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007.
Ficus benjamina, commonly known as weeping fig, benjamin fig or ficus tree, and often sold in stores as just ficus, is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae, native to Asia and Australia. It is the official tree of Bangkok. The species is also naturalized in the West Indies and in the States of Florida and Arizona in the United States.
Ficus elastica, the rubber fig, rubber bush, rubber tree, rubber plant, or Indian rubber bush, Indian rubber tree, is a species of plant in the fig genus, native to eastern parts of South Asia and southeast Asia. It has become naturalized in Sri Lanka, the West Indies, and the US State of Florida.
Lingnan University in Canton, Kwangtung Province, China, was a private university established by a group of American missionaries in 1888. At its founding it was named Canton Christian College (格致書院).
Guangzhou, also known as Canton, is the capital and most populous city of the province of Guangdong in southern China. On the Pearl River about 120 km (75 mi) north-northwest of Hong Kong and 145 km (90 mi) north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road, and continues to serve as a major port and transportation hub, as well as one of China's three largest cities.
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Situated in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. Bounded by the South China Sea on the west, the Philippine Sea on the east and the Celebes Sea on the southwest, the Philippines shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Vietnam to the west, Palau to the east, and Malaysia and Indonesia to the south.
Condit retired from UC Riverside in 1951 and died in Santa Barbara, California in 1981 at the age of 97. A collection of his papers is held by the Riverside Public Library.
Selected publications
Ficus: The Exotic Species. University of California, Division of Agricultural Sciences, 1969.
Fig-Varieties. University of California, 1955.
The Fig. Chronica Botanica Co., 1947.
Caprifigs and Caprification. University of California Press, 1922.
The Loquat. University of California Press, 1915.
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References
↑ J.E.C. "Ira Judson Condit: In Appreciation". California Avocado Society 1946 Yearbook 30.
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