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SUMMARY
Modern methods of analysing biological materials, including protein and DNA sequencing, are increasingly the objects of historical study. Yet twentieth-century taxonomic techniques have been overlooked in one of their most important contexts: agricultural botany. This paper addresses this omission by harnessing unexamined archival material from the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), a British plant science organization. During the 1980s the NIAB carried out three overlapping research programmes in crop identification and analysis: electrophoresis, near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and machine vision systems. For each of these three programmes, contemporary economic, statutory and scientific factors behind their uptake by the NIAB are discussed. This approach reveals significant links between taxonomic practice at the NIAB and historical questions around agricultural research, intellectual property and scientific values. Such links are of further importance given that the techniques developed by researchers at the NIAB during the 1980s remain part of crop classification guidelines issued by international bodies today.
Notes
1 G. Mudzana et al., ‘Variety discrimination in faba beans (Vicia faba L.): an integrated approach’, Plant Varieties and Seeds, 8 (1995), 135–45.
2 P.D. Keefe and S.R. Draper, ‘The measurement of new characters for cultivar identification in wheat using machine vision’, Seed Science and Technology, 14 (1986), 715–24.
3 P.S. Wellington, ‘Director's Notes for Fellows on the Annual Report and Accounts for 1978’, NIAB Fellow's newsletter 76, July 1979, Folder N1-11, National Institute of Agricultural Botany [hereafter referred to as NIAB] Archives. The substantial delay between the passage of the 1964 Act and submission of new varieties to the NIAB occurred as it generally took plant breeders between ten to twelve generations to produce a new variety from an initial cross. For an overview of the history of the NIAB, see Valerie Silvey and P.S. Wellington, Crop and Seed Improvement: A History of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany 1919 to 1996 (Cambridge: NIAB, 1997). On the Institute's pre-1970 history, see Dominic Joseph Berry, ‘Genetics, statistics, and regulation at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, 1919-1969’, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds (2014).
4 A.F. Kelly and J.D.C. Bowring, ‘The development of seed certification in England and Wales', Plant Varieties and Seeds, 3 (1990), 139–50 (148).
5 Jonathan Harwood, ‘Introduction to the special issue on biology and agriculture’, Journal of the History of Biology, 39 (2006), 237–39; Barbara A. Kimmelman, ‘Mr. Blakeslee builds his dream house: agricultural institutions, genetics and careers', Journal of the History of Biology, 39 (2006), 241–80; Christophe Bonneuil, ‘Mendelism, plant breeding and experimental cultures: agriculture and the development of genetics in France’, Journal of the History of Biology, 39 (2006), 281–308.
6 Robert J. Cooke, interview with author, 09 March 2015. This institutional transformation was also brought up at a seminar with the NIAB Retirement Group, 21 April 2016.
7 Robert J. Cooke, Handbook of Variety Testing: Electrophoresis Testing (Zurich: ISTA Works, 1992). Since the release of Cooke's original handbook, the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) has held a number of meetings and workshops on electrophoresis: for instance a 2010 workshop on ‘Species and Variety Testing / Protein electrophoresis’ held in Hanover, Germany.
8 Nicolas Rasmussen, Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2014), p. 3.
9 Paolo Palladino, ‘Science, technology and the economy: plant breeding in Great Britain, 1920-1970’, Economic History Review, 49 (1996), 116–36 (124).
10 ‘Downbeat plan for agriculture’, Nature 320 (1986): 299. In earlier decades, the British government had similarly felt that basic research in agriculture did not translate into practical gains with enough frequency. See Jon Agar, ‘Thatcher, scientist’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 65 (2011), 215–32.
11 Simon Hadlington, ‘Outlook poor for agriculture’, Nature, 332 (1988), 6.
12 Christine McGourty, ‘Erosion of UK research on agriculture and food must end’, Nature, 337 (1989), 401.
13 Edward Dart, interview with author 02 April 2015. Edward Dart was employed as a research director in ICI Seeds (later Zeneca), a leading biotech company. Zeneca was one of the private firms which attempted to purchase the genetics arm of the PBI following the Institute's closure.
14 Silvey and Wellington, Crop and Seed Improvement, p. 117.
15 H.A. Doughty to P.S. Wellington, 11/09/1975, Box C-3, Paper no. 668, NIAB.
16 P.S. Wellington, ‘Director's notes for Fellows on the annual report and accounts for 1978’, NIAB Fellow's Newsletter 76, July 1979, Folder N1-11, NIAB.
17 ‘General developments in 1980’, Sixty-first report and accounts 1980, NIAB.
18 ‘Crop priorities’, 26 Nov 1981, Box C-3, Council Paper No. 754, NIAB.
19 ‘Manpower policy’, 5 June 1980, Box C-3, Executive Committee Paper No. 734, NIAB.
20 Eric J. Vettel, Biotech: The Countercultural Origins of an Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), p. 188.
21 ‘Changes in the work of chemistry and quality assessment branch 1977-82’, Sixty-third report and accounts 1982, NIAB.
22 ‘The Need to Increase Income-Earning’, Sixty-Ninth Report and Accounts 1988, NIAB.
23 ‘The Effect of Government Cuts on the Institute's Work’, Sixty-Ninth Report and Accounts 1988, NIAB.
24 ‘Progress Report’ Sixty-Ninth Report and Accounts 1988, NIAB.
25 Cooke interview, 2015.
26 Simon R. Draper and E.A. Craig, ‘A Phenotypic Classification of Wheat Gliadin Electropherograms’, Journal of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, 15 (1981), 390–98. Other crops, including vegetables, were analysed by the C&QA team and found to be just as amenable to electrophoresis.
27 Richard C. Lewontin, ‘Twenty-five years in genetics: electrophoresis in the development of evolutionary genetics: milestone or millstone?’ Genetics, 128 (1991), 657–62; Roger Lewin, Patterns in Evolutions: The New Molecular View (New York: Scientific American Library, 1999), pp. 93–94.
28 Lily E. Kay, ‘Laboratory technology and biological knowledge: the Tiselius apparatus, 1930-1945’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 10 (1988), 51–72; Frank W. Putman, Alpha-, beta-, gamma-globulin-Arne Tiselius and the advent of electrophoresis’, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 36 (1993), 323–37; Howard Hsueh-Hao Chiang, ‘The laboratory technology of discrete molecular separation: the historical development of gel electrophoresis and the material epistemology of biomolecular science’, Journal of the History of Biology, 42 (2009), 495--527.
29 Sam G. Wildman and James Bonner, ‘The electrophoretic detection of plant virus proteins’, The Scientific Monthly, 70 (1950), 347–51; S.J. Singer, J.G. Bald, S.G. Wildman and R.D. Owen, ‘The detection and isolation of naturally occurring strains of tobacco mosaic virus by electrophoresis’, Science, 114 (New Series) (1951), 463–65.
30 Murray L. Johnson and Merrill J. Wicks, ‘Serum protein-electrophoresis in mammals-taxonomic implications’, Systematic Zoology, 8 (1959), 88–95 (88).
31 Cooke interview, 2015.
32 Kelly and Bowring, ‘The development of seed certification’, 149.
33 R.P. Ellis, ‘The Identification of Wheat Varieties by the Electrophoresis of Grain Proteins’, Journal of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, 12 (1971), 223–35 (233).
34 ‘Additional Resources Required for Implementing EEC Directives on Marketing of Seed’, October 1971, Box E-3, Executive Committee Paper No. 380, NIAB.
35 Kelly and Bowring, ‘The development of seed certification’, 148.
36 Quarterly Report to Council, June to August 1982, Document No. 763, Box C-3, NIAB.
37 Cooke interview 2015.
38 Graham Milbourn, ‘Income-earning’, Sixty-eighth report and accounts 1987, NIAB.
39 Cooke interview, 2015.
40 Quarterly Report to Council, September to October 1982, Box C-3, Document No. 766, NIAB.
41 Cooke interview, 2015.
42 Quarterly Report to Council, September to October 1982, Box C-3, Document No. 766, NIAB.
43 Quarterly Report to Council, September to October 1982, Box C-3, Document No. 766, NIAB.
44 ‘Chemotaxonomy’, Sixty-sixth report and accounts 1985, NIAB.
45 ‘Workload’, Sixty-Eighth Report and Accounts 1987, NIAB.
46 R. Steven Turner, ‘Potato agriculture, late blight science, and the molecularization of plant pathology’, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 38 (2008), 223–57.
47 Andrew Webster, ‘The incorporation of biotechnology into plant-breeding in Cambridge’, in Deciphering Science and Technology: The Social Relations of Expertise, ed. by Ian Varcoe, Maureen McNeil and Steven Yearly (London: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 177--201 (p. 189).
48 Lily E. Kay, ‘Biochemists and molecular biologists: laboratories, networks, disciplines: comments’, Journal of the History of Biology, 29 (1996), 447–50; Steven Turner, ‘Potato agriculture’, 235.
49 Quarterly Report to Council, September to October 1982, Box C-3, Document No. 766, NIAB.
50 Yakov M. Rabkin, ‘Technological innovation in science: the adoption of infrared spectroscopy by chemists’, Isis, 78 (1987), 31–54 (31).
51 Quarterly Report to Council, March-May 1982, Box C-3, Document No. 761, NIAB.
52 Quarterly Report to Council, June to August 1982, Box C-3, Document No. 763, NIAB.
53 ‘Chemistry and quality assessment branch’, Sixty-seventh report and accounts 1986, NIAB. This ‘automation’ involved glucosinolate analysis of oilseed rape by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
54 ‘Changes in the work of chemistry and quality assessment branch 1977-82’, Sixty-third report and accounts 1982, NIAB.
55 J.H. Morley, P.D. Fletcher and A.G. Morgan, ‘The estimation of moisture in whole grain wheat and barley using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy’, Journal of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, 16 (1984), 437–42 (437).
56 ‘Changes in the work of chemistry and quality assessment branch 1977-82’, Sixty-third report and accounts 1982, NIAB.
57 ‘Changes in the work of chemistry and quality assessment branch 1977-82’, Sixty-third report and accounts 1982, NIAB.
58 Rabkin, ‘Technological innovation’, 32.
59 Rabkin, ‘Technological innovation’, 40.
60 ‘Future developments’, Sixty-sixth report and accounts 1985, NIAB.
61 ‘Future developments’, Sixty-sixth report and accounts 1985, NIAB.
62 P.D. Keefe and Simon R. Draper, ‘An automated machine vision system for the morphometry of new cultivars and plant genebank accessions’, Plant Varieties and Seeds, 1 (1988), 1–11 (1). Plant Varieties and Seeds was the new title given to the Journal of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany.
63 Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2010), pp. 115–90.
64 Keefe and Draper, ‘An automated machine vision system’, 8.
65 Rosemary Sells, From Seedtime to Harvest: The Life of Frank Horne 1904–1975 (Cambridge: Hobson's Press, 1978), p. 105.
66 Cooke interview, 2015.
67 Keefe and Draper, ‘An automated machine vision system’, 1–2.
68 D.G. Myers and K.J. Edsall, ‘The application of image processing techniques to the identification of Australian wheat varieties’ Plant Varieties and Seeds, 2 (1989), 109–16 (109).
69 Myers and Edsall, ‘The application of image processing’, 110.
70 Robert Bud, ‘Biotechnology in the twentieth century’, Social Studies of Science, 21 (1991), 415–57 (418–19).
71 NIAB developed a standard method of PAGE electrophoresis which was approved by the ISTA for wheat and barley in 1986. In the same year, the European Business Council (EBC) approved electrophoresis for barley only. ‘Electrophoresis’, Sixty-seventh report and accounts 1986, NIAB.
72 Simon R. Draper and P.D. Keefe, ‘Machine vision for the characterization and identification of cultivars’, Plant Varieties and Seeds, 2 (1989), 53–62 (53--54).
73 This fear of variety theft or fraud was articulated to the author at the NIAB Seminar, 09 February 2016.
74 H.D. Patterson and M. Talbot, ‘A computing system for cereal variety trials’, The Journal of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, 13 (1974), 142–51.
75 Silvey and Wellington, Crop and Seed Improvement, p. 133.
76 ‘Seed handling unit’, Sixty-seventh report and accounts 1986, NIAB.
77 Bruno J. Strasser, ‘Collecting, comparing, and computing sequences: the making of Margaret O. Dayhoff's Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure, 1954-1965’, Journal of the History of Biology, 43 (2010), 623–60.
78 C.J. Taylor, T.F. Cootes, A. Lanitis, G. Edwards, P. Smyth and A.C.W. Kotcheff, ‘Model-Based Interpretation of Complex and Variable Images’, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 352 (1997), 1267--74.
79 Gregory Radick, ‘The Studies C interview: Nicholas Jardine’ Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43 (2012), I–III (II).
80 David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 (London: Profile, 2006).
81 I.E. Wilson and A.J. Eade, ‘Preliminary assessment of some morphological characters in Triticale for use in varietal description’, The Journal of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, 17 (1985), 41–52.
82 Cooke interview 2015.
83 ‘Cereals’, Sixty-seventh report and accounts 1986, NIAB.
84 Lily E. Kay, The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); Steven Turner, ‘Potato agriculture’, 255.
85 D.E. Warren, ‘Image analysis research at NIAB: chrysanthemum leaf shape’, Plant Varieties and Seeds, 10 (1997), 59–61.
86 Discussion following the NIAB Seminar, 09 February 2016.
87 C.C. Ainsworth and P.J. Sharp, ‘The potential role of DNA probes in plant variety identification’, Plant Varieties and Seeds, 2 (1989), 27–34 (27).
88 Ainsworth and Sharp, ‘The potential role of DNA probes’, 28.
89 Cooke interview, 2015.