Hugh Pye (1 January 1860 – 22 August 1942) was an Australian agricultural educator and pioneering wheat breeder. He taught at, and was later principal at Dookie Agricultural College, where he developed more than 100 wheat cultivars aimed at improving drought tolerance and milling quality for low- and medium-rainfall districts. His most successful variety, Currawa (released 1912), became the second most widely grown wheat in Australia during the 1920s.

Early life

Pye was born in

Ascot Ascot, Ascott or Askot may refer to: Places Australia * Ascot, Queensland, suburb of Brisbane * Ascot, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a locality * Ascot Park, South Australia, suburb of Adelaide * Ascot (Ballarat), town near Ballarat in Victoria ...

, now a suburb of

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is an Australian city in north-central Victoria. The city is located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2022, Bendigo has a popula ...

, to William Marsland Pye, a school headmaster, and Joanna Saunders (née Edwards). He attended Geelong State School, Christ Church Grammar School (where his father was headmaster) and Geelong Technical School, then completed two years of an engineering course at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

under parental pressure. His sister was the educator

Emmeline Pye Emmeline Pye (13 December 1861 – 20 April 1949) was an Australian educationalist, teacher and lecturer. She was one of the first Australians trained in kindergarten ideas and she opened the first one, run by the state of Victoria, in 1907 in Bru ...

Career

After teaching science at St Kilda Grammar School, Pye joined Dookie Agricultural College in 1887. Initially interested in pasture improvement, he turned to wheat breeding after corresponding with William Farrer in 1889. Appointed principal of Dookie in 1894, he balanced administration with breeding work until 1916, when a dispute over agricultural education governance prompted him to resign and become Victoria’s government cerealist. Among his notable releases were ''Improved Steinwedel'' (1899), ''Warden'' (1900), ''College Purple'' (1901), ''Minister'' (1917) and ''Baldmin'' (1926). By the mid-1920s, his cultivars ''Currawa'', ''Major'' and ''Minister'' dominated Victorian sowings, and ''Major'' was the most widely grown wheat in New Zealand. At the time of his death, Pye's varieties accounted for 80% of those grown in Victoria.

Later life and legacy

Pye retired in 1931. A fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society of the UK, he was remembered as shy and genial whose “sincerity of purpose and intellectual honesty” influenced generations of agronomists.

Personal life

On 10 February 1892 Pye married Jane Menzies Tough; the couple had two daughters. He died in Armadale, Melbourne, on 22 August 1942, aged 82, and was cremated.

References

1860 births 1942 deaths Australian agronomists Australian educators People from Bendigo University of Melbourne alumni {{Australia-scientist-stub