The year 1906 was momentous for the State of California - the San Francisco earthquake and the establishment, by the state legislature, of the University Farm, Davis. The Davis site was selected because of good soil and its reasonable proximity to Berkeley which was rapidly becoming a highly urbanized area. The Farm was to serve as a research facility for UCB agriculturists and as a farm school - primarily short-courses and nondegree courses - to aid California farmers.
In 1910, a two-year, nondegree program in agriculture was initiated at Davis, and most agrigulture departments at Berkeley established branch departments or divisions on the Farm. A course in plant pathology was first taught at Davis in 1913 by Stanley S. Rogers, a pathologist located in the Division of Truck Crops. For many years, before its demise in 1960, the nondegree program was supervised by Professor F. L. Griffin who, as a graduate student at Oregon State College, first described the bacterial canker disease of stone fruits in the U.S. As the years passed and the faculty at Davis became stronger, a number of degree (B.S.) courses were added to the curriculum. However, until the late 1940s it was still necessary for students to take some courses at Berkeley in order to complete the B.S. degree requirements in agriculture. The first batchelor's degree commencement at Davis was held in June, 1948.
The Plant Pathology Department at Davis dates from 1927 when J. B. Kendrick was appointed vice-chairman under R. E. Smith, Chairman of the Berkeley-Davis Department. L. D. Leach and E. E. Wilson joined the Davis department in 1929. Plant Pathology 120 (a degree course) was first taught at Davis in 1929 by J. T. Barrett of the Berkeley staff. In 1932 and for several succeeding years L. D. Leach was in charge of this course and also of the nondegree course (PP01 or 52). Special-problem courses at the undergraduate level were instituted in 1933-34 and the course (PP125) on diseases of vegetable and field crops was offered in 1936. In 1939-40, a companion course on diseases of fruit trees, nuts, and grapes was introduced.
During the 1930s and '40s it was possible to do graduate study and research at Davis, but it was necessary to do a year's study at Berkeley in order to complete a doctoral program in plant pathology. The students who completed their doctorates under this plan were W. B. Hewitt, 1936, B. R. Houston, 1939, J. W. Oswald, 1942, H. N. Miller, 1948, K. E. Nelson, 1949, and R. H. Converse, 1951.
Following the war years, 1942 through 1945 when the campus was closed to students, the department at Davis developed rapidly. J. W. Oswald was added to the staff in 1946, W. H. English in 1947, and R. G. Grogan and George Nyland in 1948. The campus at this time had approximately 1400 students, including both nondegree and degree students, and the city of Davis had a population of about 2700. Authorization in 1949 to grant graduate degrees in plant pathology at Davis resulted in the offering of several new courses: Plant Pathological Methods (PP122) and Phytopathogenic Fungi (PP124) in 1949-50, and Advanced Plant Pathology (PP128) in 1951-52. The latter course was converted to a graduate level course (PP215) in 1958-59 and later changed to 235. The change ln policy permitting graduate students in plant pathology to do all of their study on the Davis Campus was the turning point in development of our graduate program. The number of graduate students enrolled in plant pathology increased from 8 in 1949-50 to approximately 20 in the mid 50s and to a high of 57 in 1967-68. During the past 15 years our graduate student enrollment has been between 40 and 50. Since the early 1950s the department also has offered an undergraduate major or specialization in plant pathology, with enrollment mostly falling between 5 and 15 students.
With the retirement of Dr. Gardner (Chr. Berkeley-Davis) in 1954, Dr. Kendrick became chairman of Davis-Berkeley and Dr. Oswald transferred to Berkeley as vice-chairman. Our teaching and research program was strengthened during the 1950s by the addition to our staff of J. M. Ogawa, E. E. Butler, J. E. DeVay, and T. A. Shalla. With Dr. Kendrick's retirement in 1960, L. D. Leach assumed the chairmanship, and when Dr. Oswald moved into university administration in 1959, Dr. W. C. Snyder became vice-chairman at Berkeley. In 1963 the Davis and Berkeley departments became separate, autonomous units. The succeeding chairmanships at Davis were as follows: W. B. Hewitt, 1968-69, R. G. Grogan, 1969-74, T. Kosuge, 1974-80, and J. E. DeVay, 1980-. Faculty additions during the 1960s included R. N. Campbell, C. I. Kado, T. Kosuge, R. J. Shepherd, and R. K. Webster. Additions during the 1970's were J. M. Duniway, D. G. Gilchrist, B. Lear, J. D. MacDonald, and M. A. Sall, and our most recent appointees include R. M. Bostock in 1981, and W. Timberlake, January, 1983. The College of Agriculture on the Davis Campus did not become independent from Berkeley until 1952 when Fred N. Briggs, chairman of the Agronomy Department, became its first dean. In the middle 1940s a school of Veterinary Medicine was established at Davis with the first graduating class ln 1952. In 1951 the College of Letters and Science opened its doors on the Davis Campus with an enrollment of 86 students. This college grew slowly in the 1950s but extremely rapidly in the 1960s and 70s. Although the Regents made Davis a general university campus in 1959, mail from Berkeley continued for several years to be addressed University Farm, Davis. More recent campus changes have included establishement of the Graduate Division (1961), College of Engineering (1962), School of Law (1966), School of Medicine (1968), and a graduate School of Adiministration (1981). Present enrollment is 19,310 including approximately 5,500 students in graduate or professional study. The teaching faculty numbers 1,250 with an additional 6,000 staff members. The city of Davis now has a population of 37,800 with approximately 4,000 additional people housed on campus.
The Plant Pathology Department currently has a resident teaching and research faculty of 25, including 4 USDA resarchers (adjunct lecturers), one extension plant pathologist, and three emeritus professors. The additional support staff numbers 61. We currently have 13 undergraduates who are specializing in plant pathology and 41 students studying for M.S. or Ph.D. degrees. Eleven additional students from Biochemistry, Genetics, Nematology, and Plant Physiology are doing their graduate research in the department. Our undergraduate curriculum consists of the following: Introduction to Plant Pathology, Diagnosis and Control of Plant Diseases, Physiology of Fungi, Internships, Directed Group Study, and Special Study for Advanced Undergraduates. The following graduate courses are taught: Diseases of Vegetable and Field Crops, Diseases of Fruit and Nut Crops, Ecology of Plant Pathogens and Epidemiology of Plant Disease, Physiology and Biochemistry of Host-Pathogen Interaction, Genetics of Plant Pathogens, Pathogenic Fungi, Plant Virology, Plant Bacteriology, Special Topics in Advanced Plant Pathology, Advanced Research Conference, Seminar (general), Seminar in Host-Parasite Physiology, Seminar in Plant Virology, Seminar ln Mycology, Special Group Study, and Research.
Over the years the department has awarded 140 M.S. degrees and 178 Ph.D. degrees. That we have been concerned with quality as well as quantity is evidenced by the fact that two of our graduates (W. B. Hewitt, Ph.D., 1936 and L. H. Purdy, Ph.D. 1954) have served as President of the American Phytopathological Society, one (J. W. Oswald, Ph.D., 1942) has been President of Pennyslvania State University for 12 years, one (W. J. Moller, Ph.D., 1967) received the CIBA-GEIGY Award for outstanding contributions to plant pathology, and five [W. B. Hewitt (Ph.D., 1936), J. W. Oswald (Ph.D., 1942), L. H. Purdy (Ph.D., 1954), and T. A. Shalla and A. R. Weinhold (Ph.D.s in 1958)] have been elected Fellows of the American Phytopathological Society. The department has every reason to be proud of the teaching and research accomplishments it has made during the 55 years of its existence.
One Shields Avenue - 354 Hutchison Hall - Davis, California 95616
Telephone: (530) 752-0300 - FAX: (530) 752-5674
Email the Plant Pathology Office