Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Society for Economic Botany (2003). He has been a member of several
learned societies, including being a Fellow of the Linnean Society,
London.
Daniel Zohary is recognized as a world leader in the
field of plant
domestication, largely due to the visibility and impact of his compre-
hensive topic mentioned above (Zohary et al. 2012). Zohary
s work
served as the basis for descriptions of the rise of agriculture in Jared
Diamond
'
s (1997) Pulitzer Prize-winning topic
Guns, Germs, and Steel
and it strongly in
'
uences the accounts therein of plant domestication by
humans in the Fertile Crescent (p. 134
183) and of indi-
vidual crops (development of nonbitter almonds, p. 118
-
146 and 180
-
-
119, of edible
peas, p.120, and of nonshattering wheat and barley, p. 120
121). Indeed,
in the
Further Readings
section recommended by Diamond (1997,
p. 435), one
-
-
cally about plant domestication, Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf,
Domes-
tication of Plants in the Old World
, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993), stands out. It provides the most detailed account of plant
domestication available for any part of the world.
finds the following statement:
“
Among references specifi-
”
VII. PERSONALITY
Danny
s boyish appearance and enthusiasm remained part of his person-
ality until advanced age. Even as an established
'
field botanist, his Jeep-
mounted expeditions were legendary. He would identify interesting
specimens in the
field while driving the vehicle, and on a couple of
occasions almost caused road accidents by abruptly stopping and running
out of the Jeep to look at suspected plants. Some of these
field trips were
very extensive and took several weeks, during which vast territories were
covered, in Turkey, Iran, Armenia, and Georgia (Fig. 1.1). As an MSc
student, this writer participated in one of Danny
s earliest expeditions to
Greece and Turkey in 1962, which lasted 45 days and extended to the
eastern borders of Turkey. Other participants were Professor Michael
Zohary and Moshe Feldman, a Ph.D. student in Danny
'
s laboratory. This
was a most rewarding experience, fromwhich all four of us gained insight
into the biology of populations of wild relatives of major crops, and initial
understanding of the processes of plant domestication, which Daniel
Zohary later elaborated on and developed further.
Among Zohary
'
s numerous ex-students, several have developed suc-
cessful careers in plant breeding and genetics in Israel: Moshe Feldman,
Gideon Ladizinsky, Aliza Vardi, Eli Putievski, Jossi Hillel, and Giora
Simchen.
'
