Rothamsted Research, previously known as the Rothamsted Experimental Station and then the Institute of Arable Crops Research, is one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, having been founded in 1843. It is located at Harpenden in the English county of Hertfordshire and is a registered charity under English law. [1]
Two of the station's best known and longest-running experiments are the Broadbalk Experiment, planted annually with winter wheat since 1843, and the Park Grass Experiment, a biological study that started in 1856 and has been continuously monitored ever since. [2]
The Rothamsted Experimental Station was founded in 1843 by John Bennet Lawes, a noted Victorian era entrepreneur and scientist who had founded one of the first artificial fertilizer manufacturing factories in 1842, on his 16th-century estate, Rothamsted Manor, to investigate the impact of inorganic and organic fertilizers on crop yield.
Lawes had Henry King conduct studies on the application of bone dust to turnip fields between 1836 and 1838. In 1840 he hired Dobson,[ who? ] a chemist. He had experiments conducted with bone ash treated with sulphuric acid and various other mixtures. It is thought that the experiments were at least to some extent influenced by Justus von Liebig who had attended a meeting of the British Association at Liverpool in 1837. Lawes took out patents on manure mixtures and began a factory to manufacture them in 1843, the same year that Joseph Henry Gilbert replaced Dobson who had moved to Australia. Gilbert had trained under Liebig and with Lawes's support, he launched the first of a series of long-term field experiments, some of which still continue. [3] Over 57 years, Lawes and Gilbert established the foundations of modern scientific agriculture and the principles of crop nutrition.
In 1902 Daniel Hall moved from Wye College to become director, taking a lower salary to join an establishment lacking money, staff, and direction. Hall decided that Rothamsted needed to specialise and was eventually successful in obtaining state support for agricultural research. In 1912 E. John Russell, who had come from Wye in 1907, took over as director until 1943, overseeing a major expansion in the 1920s, when Sir William Gammie Ogg took over until 1958 and increasing the number of staff from 140 to 471 and creating new biochemistry, nematology, and pedology departments. The site in Harpenden grew to cover 330 hectares (820 acres). [4] The current director and CEO is Professor Angela Karp.
Many distinguished scientists have been associated with Rothamsted. In 1919 Russell hired Ronald Fisher to investigate the possibility of analysing the vast amount of data accumulated from the "Classical Field Experiments." Fisher analysed the data and stayed to create the theory of experimental design, making Rothamsted a major centre for research in statistics and genetics. Among his appointments and successors in the Statistics department were Oscar Irwin, John Wishart, Frank Yates, William Cochran, Winifred Mackenzie and John Nelder. Indeed, many[ who? ] consider Rothamsted to be the most important birthplace of modern statistical theory and practice.
Partly through these methods, researchers at Rothamsted have made significant contributions to agricultural science, including the discovery and development of systemic herbicides and pyrethroid insecticides, as well as pioneering contributions to the fields of virology, nematology, soil science and pesticide resistance. During World War II, aiming to increase crop yields for a nation at war, a team under the leadership of Judah Hirsch Quastel developed 2,4-D, still the most widely used weed killer in the world.
In 1987, Rothamsted, the Long Ashton Research Station, and Broom's Barn Experimental Station merged to form the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR). The Long Ashton Research Station was closed in 2002, with some of its staff moved to Rothamsted, whilst Broom's Barn is operated as an experimental farm for Rothamsted.
Rothamsted is now operated by a grouping of private organizations under the name of Rothamsted Research and is mainly funded by various branches of the UK government through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Rothamsted Research supports around 350 scientists (including 50 visiting scientists), 150 administrative staff and 60 PhD students. [5]
As well as the Rothamsted site Rothamsted Research operates: [5]
Its research programme has five main areas:
It also operates:
In 2012 Rothamsted started testing genetically modified wheat which had been modified to produce an aphid alarm pheromone produced by aphids when under attack to help deter pests. [8] This trial attracted criticism from anti-GM groups and "about 200" people attempted to occupy the site on 27 May 2012. [9] They were prevented by a large police presence and the protest ended peacefully. [10] However one protester did trespass and damage the crop. The protester was later arrested, tried and fined £4,000. [11]
A video appeal by scientists at Rothamsted led to over 6,000 people signing a "Don't destroy research" petition organised by Sense about Science. [12] Sense about Science also organised a question and answer session with scientists. [13] The author Mark Lynas commented that Rothamsted's successful campaign may be a turning point for GMOs. [14]
The results published in 2015 showed that the trial wheat variety was no better than standard wheat varieties in deterring pests. [15]
Source: [16]
Some of the chemists associated with Rothamsted can be found by searching Rothamsted on the Biographical Database of the British Chemical Community, 1880-1970. [21]
Agricultural science is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. Professionals of the agricultural science are called agricultural scientists or agriculturists.
Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) was an agricultural and horticultural government-funded research centre located in the village of Long Ashton near Bristol, UK. It was created in 1903 to study and improve the West Country cider industry and became part of the University of Bristol in 1912. Later, it expanded into fruit research and in the 1980s was redirected to work on arable crops and aspects of botany. It closed in 2003.
Sir John Bennet Lawes, 1st Baronet, FRS was an English entrepreneur and agricultural scientist. He founded an experimental farm at his home at Rothamsted Manor that eventually became Rothamsted Research, where he developed a superphosphate that would mark the beginnings of the chemical fertilizer industry.
Jean-Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault was a French chemist who made significant contributions to agricultural science, petroleum science and metallurgy.
An agricultural experiment station (AES) or agricultural research station (ARS) is a scientific research center that investigates difficulties and potential improvements to food production and agribusiness. Experiment station scientists work with farmers, ranchers, suppliers, processors, and others involved in food production and agriculture.
A long-term experiment is an experimental procedure that runs through a long period of time, in order to test a hypothesis or observe a phenomenon that takes place at an extremely slow rate. What duration is considered "long" depends on the academic discipline. For example, several agricultural field experiments have run for more than 100 years, but much shorter experiments may qualify as "long-term" in other disciplines. An experiment is "a set of actions and observations", implying that one or more treatments is imposed on the system under study. Long-term experiments therefore contrast with nonexperimental long-term studies in which manipulation of the system studied is impossible or undesirable.
John Ashworth Nelder was a British statistician known for his contributions to experimental design, analysis of variance, computational statistics, and statistical theory.
Sir Edward John Russell was a British soil chemist, agriculture scientist, and director of Rothamsted Experimental Station from 1912 to 1943. He was responsible for hiring R A Fisher for statistical research at Rothamsted and driven by concerns over a lack of international information exchange about agriculture, he initiated the Imperial Agricultural Bureaux, which later became the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux.
Agricultural research in Israel is based on close cooperation and interaction between scientists, consultants, farmers and agriculture-related industries. Israel's climate ranges from Mediterranean (Csa) to semi-arid and arid. Shortage of irrigation water and inadequate precipitation in some parts of the country are major constraints facing Israeli agriculture. Through extensive greenhouses production, vegetables, fruits and flowers are grown for export to the European markets during the winter off-season.
Since the advent of genetic engineering in the 1970s, concerns have been raised about the dangers of the technology. Laws, regulations, and treaties were created in the years following to contain genetically modified organisms and prevent their escape. Nevertheless, there are several examples of failure to keep GM crops separate from conventional ones.
Genetically modified food controversies are disputes over the use of foods and other goods derived from genetically modified crops instead of conventional crops, and other uses of genetic engineering in food production. The disputes involve consumers, farmers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. The key areas of controversy related to genetically modified food are whether such food should be labeled, the role of government regulators, the objectivity of scientific research and publication, the effect of genetically modified crops on health and the environment, the effect on pesticide resistance, the impact of such crops for farmers, and the role of the crops in feeding the world population. In addition, products derived from GMO organisms play a role in the production of ethanol fuels and pharmaceuticals.
Robert William Maclagan Wedderburn was a Scottish statistician who worked at the Rothamsted Experimental Station. He was co-developer, with John Nelder, of the generalized linear model methodology, and then expanded this subject to develop the idea of quasi-likelihood.
Rothamsted Manor is a former manor and current manor house, situated in Harpenden Rural in the English county of Hertfordshire. A Grade I listed building, dating in part from the 17th century, it is now an events venue, while the surrounding estate is home to the Rothamsted Research Centre.
Genetically modified wheat is wheat that has been genetically engineered by the direct manipulation of its genome using biotechnology. As of 2020, no GM wheat is grown commercially, although many field tests have been conducted, with one wheat variety, Bioceres HB4 Wheat, obtaining regulatory approval from the Argentinean government.
John Anthony Pickett CBE DSC FRS FLSW is a British chemist who is noted for his work on insect pheromones. Pickett is Professor of Biological Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at Cardiff University. He previously served as the Michael Elliott Distinguished Research Fellow at Rothamsted Research.
Hugh David Loxdale is an entomologist. He was professor of ecology at the Institute of Ecology, University of Jena from 2009 to 2010, president of the Royal Entomological Society from 2004 to 2006, and honorary visiting professor at the School of Biosciences, Cardiff University. Loxdale works on the population biology, ecology, and genetics of insects, especially aphids and their wasp parasitoids.
Winifred Elsie Brenchley OBE, DSc (Lond), FLS, FRES (1883–1953), an agricultural botanist who worked at the Rothamsted Research Station. Along with Katherine Warington, she demonstrated the role of boron as an essential micronutrient for plants. She was the first woman in the UK to break into the male-dominated sphere of agricultural science. She has been described as "perhaps Britain's leading authority on weeds in the early twentieth century".
Katherine Warington was a botanist and the first person to show that boron, as boric acid, was essential for the healthy growth of plants.
Mary Dilys Glynne was a British plant pathologist and mountaineer.
Frank Ewert is a German agricultural scientist, Scientific Director of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and Professor of Crop Production at the University of Bonn.
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