John C. Walker
Wolf Prize Laureate in Agriculture 1978
John C. Walker
Affiliation at the time of the award:
University of Wisconsin, USA
Award citation:
“for his research in plant pathology, developing of disease-resistant varieties of major food plants”.
Prize share:
John C. Walker
George F. Sprague
Professor Sprague (a geneticist – plant breeder) and Professor Walker (a plant pathologist -plant breeder) have achieved world eminence in the development of improved crop plants to the extent of greatly stabilizing the culture, increasing yields, and improving the quality of a number of major vegetable crops, and of maize – one of the world’s dominant grain crops. Each has developed novel and efficient methodology of breeding techniques and procedures. Both have been towering figures in contributing to both applied and basic research. Both have most enviable records of having trained scientific manpower for agriculture’s needs. Students of each are to be found throughout the world, many of them having established themselves as distinguished researchers, educators and/or administrators. Each awardee has served well the organizations of his respective science and agricultural industry, as well as the governments of the world.
Professor Emeritus Walker’s eminence as a plant pathologist would lead many to judge him to be among history’s 3 or 4 greatest plant pathologists. Central to his career have been his contributions to the control of plant diseases by the development of resistant varieties of crop plants, the development of novel and effective breeding methodology, the demonstration of the role of environmental factors, particularly host nutrition and soil temperature, in the epidemiology of plant diseases, the physiological nature of diseases, and the chemical basis of disease resistance in plants.
He is, perhaps, the World’s best example of a scientist combining applied research oriented to food production and fundamental research directed to advancing the frontiers of knowledge, integrated and organized around specific problems of agriculture. Similarly, other disease control studies led to the discovery of much fundamental information regarding the role of aerial and soil environal factors in the incidence and severity of disease.
As an educator, he is without peer in the training of scientists in the profession of plant pathology. His classic text book: “Plant Pathology”, which has been translated into several languages, has been the standard treatise on the subject. It is today the most widely used classroom text in university schools of agriculture everywhere.