George Harrison Shull (April 15, 1874 – September 28, 1954) was an eminent American plant
geneticist and the younger brother of botanical illustrator and plant breeder
J. Marion Shull. He was born on a farm in
Clark County,
Ohio
Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
, graduated from
Antioch College in 1901 and from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
(
Ph.D.) in 1904, served as botanical expert to the
Bureau of Plant Industry in 1903-04, and thenceforth was a botanical investigator of the
Carnegie Institution at the Station for Experimental Evolution,
Cold Spring Harbor
Cold Spring Harbor is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Huntington, in Suffolk County, on the North Shore of Long Island in New York. As of the 2010 United States census, the CDP population was 5,070.
History
Cold Spri ...
,
N. Y., giving special attention to the results of
Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank (March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926) was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science.
He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank's varied creations in ...
's work.
Shull played an important role in the development of
hybrid maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
(in the USA, popularly 'corn') which had great impact upon global
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
. As a geneticist, Shull worked with maize plants. He was interested in pure
breed
A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slig ...
s not for their economic value but for his experiments in genetics. He produced maize breeds that
bred true and then crossed these
strains. The hybrid
offspring
In biology, offspring are the young creation of living organisms, produced either by a single organism or, in the case of sexual reproduction, two organisms. Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way. This ca ...
of the sickly pure breeds were vigorous and predictable.
In short, an ideal economic maize resulted from a project motivated purely to advance science. For his work on maize, Shull was awarded the
Public Welfare Medal from the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
in 1948.
He also described
heterosis
Heterosis, hybrid vigor, or outbreeding enhancement is the improved or increased function of any biological quality in a hybrid offspring. An offspring is heterotic if its traits are enhanced as a result of mixing the genetic contributions o ...
in
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
in 1908 (the term heterosis was coined by Shull in 1914) and made a number of other key discoveries in the emerging field of genetics. Shull was the founder of the scientific journal ''
Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...
''.
He was called George in distinction from his son
Harrison Shull
Harrison may refer to:
People
* Harrison (name)
* Harrison family of Virginia, United States
Places
In Australia:
* Harrison, Australian Capital Territory, suburb in the Canberra district of Gungahlin
In Canada:
* Inukjuak, Quebec, or "Po ...
(1923–2003), also a distinguished scientist, specializing in the quantum mechanics of small-molecule electronic spectra.
Work with Luther Burbank
Shull worked with
Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank (March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926) was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science.
He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank's varied creations in ...
from 1906 to 1914 in an attempt to publish Burbank's plant work on the behalf of the Carnegie Institution. Ultimately unable to get Burbank's full cooperation, and finding that in the Luther Burbank Press's 1914 publication ''Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries, Their Practical Application'' "considerable sections are almost word for word the same as my ... manuscript," Shull never published his work.
Personal life
Shull married Ella Amanda Hollar in July 1906. A daughter, Elizabeth Ellen, born May 8, 1907, did not survive her birth. Ella died two weeks later. All are buried in Santa Rosa, California, in the Odd Fellows Lawn Cemetery. Shull married Mary Julia Nicholl on August 26, 1909. He and his second wife had six children (John Shull, Georgia Shull Vandersloot, Frederick Shull, David Shull, Barbara Shull Miller, and Harrison Shull.)
Death
Shull died in
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...
on September 28, 1954. His cremains were buried in
Santa Rosa, California
Santa Rosa ( Spanish for " Saint Rose") is a city and the county seat of Sonoma County, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area in California. Its estimated 2019 population was 178,127. It is the largest city in California's Wine Country and ...
br>
where his first wife was buried. His second wife's remains were also buried there twelve years later.
[Santa Rosa Memorial Park map Lot #52]
References
*
*
*
*Smocovitis, V.B. Shull, George Harrison. ''American National Biography Online''. 2000
*
Nina Fedoroff and Nancy Marie Brown. ''Mendel in the Kitchen''. Joseph Henry Press, Washington, D.C. 2004, pages 57–62.
A reference to George H. Shull's discovery of the process of heterosis is in the movie "High Time" starring Bing Crosby about a wealthy man going back to college to get his bachelor's degree. When quizzing with a younger fraternity brother, Crosby's character asks "Who discovered the process of heterosis?" to which the young student answers "George W. (pause), NO, George H. Shull"
External links
Biographical Memoirof Harrison Shull, George's son
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shull, George Harrison
1874 births
1954 deaths
American geneticists
American botanists
University of Chicago alumni
People from Clark County, Ohio
Genetics (journal) editors