B. B. STOWE^ 



Harvard University 



F. H. STODOLA 



USDA Regional Laboratory 

 Peoria, Illinois 



T. HAYASHI 



National Institute of Agricultural Sciences 

 Japan 



P. W. BRIAN 



Imperial Chemical Industries 

 England 



The Early History of GibberettLn Research 



Under the direction of Dr. Stowe, the initial workers with the gibber- 

 ellins on three continents present the original difficulties and prob- 

 lems encountered when they first got into gibberellin work. They 

 represent the Tokyo (Japanese) group, the I. C. I. (British) group, 

 and the United States Department of Agriculture (American) group. 



DISCUSSION 



Dr. Stodola: The first suggestion that I could find in the literature 

 that the bakanae effect might be due to the fungus, appeared in 1912 

 in a paper by the Japanese plant pathologist, Sawada (7). In this 

 paper he said, "On microscopic examination the plant system is found 

 to contain mycelium. It is thought that the plants grow taller due to 

 some stimulation from the mycelium." In the early 1920's, a young 

 graduate of Chiba Horticultural College - Eiichi Kurosawa - came 

 to Formosa to work with Sawada at the Central Research Institute of 

 the Formosa Department of Agriculture. His problem was to work 

 on methods of controlling the bakanae disease which, at that time, 

 was causing severe rice losses on the island. In the course of his in- 

 vestigations, Kurosawa became interested in the unusual symptom of 

 hyperelongation which characterizes the disease, and he undertook 

 to determine the nature of the responsible agent and, if possible, to 

 isolate it. In the summer of 1925 Kurosawa started his experimental 



^Subsequently: J. W. Gibbs Laboratory, Department of Botany, Yale Univer- 

 sity, New Haven, Conn. 



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