On 14 January, 1979 Jacobus Cornelis Dorst, past professor of plant breeding at Wageningen Agricultural University and honorary president of the Editorial Board of Euphytica died quite unexpectedly. He was born at Sint Annaland in 1894.
After the completion of his academic education at the Agricultural University Dorst became an assistant of professor H. M. Quanjer at the Institute for Phytopathology, Wageningen and devoted him-self to the study of virus diseases in potato.
In 1919 he was appointed advisory officer for plant breeding in the province of Friesland and entrusted with the task of promoting the growing of high-quality seed and planting material. This implied also that efforts had to be made to obtain new varieties. He was particularly successful, because in 1925 already the potato variety Alpha was put on the market. Today Alpha is still grown in many parts of world. Many other varieties followed, and of these cvs. Furore, Saskia and Sirtema still appear in the Netherlands List of Varieties, the latter two indeed in many foreign lists. Another international success was his flax variety Concurrent. Dorst was a gifted breeder.
Besides being a breeder, Dorst has contributed substantially to the institution of a national inspection service for seed and planting materials.
In 1941 he was appointed professor of plant breeding at Wageningen Agricultural University and director of the Institute of Plant Breeding of the same university. He held these offices till 1962. A great number of his students now occupy leading positions among breeders.
He was later to become the first director (1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)) also of SVP (Foundation of Agricultural Plant Breeding) at Wageningen.
Of the many important functions he carried out to organize breeding and systematize the commercialization of seeds and planting materials we must mention his initiative in 1951, together with the late Dr H. de Haan, for the founding of a plant breeding journal, Euphytica. Its first issue appeared in 1952. Until 1963 Professor Dorst was president of the Editorial Board and remained honorary president till his death last January.
He also was the promotor of Eucarpia (European Association for Breeding Research), which was founded in 1956. He was the first president of the association from 1956-1959 and later honorary president.
His merits were recognized with many distinctions.
After all these well-spent years, may he rest in peace.
J. SNEEP