George Harrison Shull was an eminent American plant geneticist and the younger brother of botanical illustrator and plant breeder J. Marion Shull.
Background
He was born on a farm in Clark County, Ohio, graduated from Antioch College in 1901 and from the University of Chicago (Doctor of Philosophy) in 1904, served as botanical expert to the Bureau of Plant Industry in 1903-1904, and thenceforth was a botanical investigator of the Carnegie Institution at the Station for Experimental Evolution, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, giving special attention to the results of Luther Burbank"s work.
Education
Bachelor of Science, Antioch College, 1901. Doctor of Laws, 1940, Doctor of Philosophy (botany and zoölogy), University of Chicago, 1904. Doctor of Science, Lawrence College, 1940, Iowa State College Agriculture and Mechanics Arts, Ames, 1942.
Career
Shull played an important role in the development of hybrid maize (in the United States of America, popularly "corn") which had great impact upon global agriculture. As a geneticist, Shull worked with maize plants. He was interested in pure breeds 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 of the sickly pure breeds were vigorous and predictable. In short, an ideal economic maize resulted from a project motivated purely to advance science.
He also described heterosis in maize 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 worked with Luther Burbank 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.
Shull died in Princeton on September 28, 1954. His second wife"s cremains were also buried there twelve years later.
Achievements
Membership
Member of Princeton Borough Board of Education, 1928-1944, vice-president 1934-1936, president 1936-1944. Member Food Panel of Princeton War Price and Rationing Board, 1944-1945. Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Member Academy Science, Vienna.
Member Gesellschaft für Pflanzenzüchtung in Wien. Member John Torrey; member Deutsche Gesellschaft für Vererbungswissenschaft, Societe Linneenne de Lyon, Institut International d’Anthropologie (Paris), American Association University professors, Torrey Botanical.
Club (president 1947), Botanical Society of America, American Society Naturalists (vice president 1911, president 1917), Ecological Society America, American Genetic Association (chairman plant section 1912, advisory committee since 1922), Eugenics Research Association Eugenics Society America, Genetics Society America, Sigma Xi (1st president Princeton chapter, 1932-1933), American Geography Society, American Society Plant Physiology, Washington Academy Sciences, American Philosophical Society Honorary president Antioch Alumni Association, since 1940.
Connections
Married Ella Amanda Hollar, July 8, 1906. Married second, Mary J. Nicholl, August 26, 1909. Children: John Coulter, Georgia Mary, Frederick Whitney, David Macaulay, Barbara Weaver, Harrison.
Awarded gold medal by DeKalb Agricultural Association, 1940, for the invention of hybrid corn. Citation for distinguished service to agriculture by New Jersey Board of Agriculture, 1945. John Scott medal and premium, 1946.tempSpaceMarcellus Hartley Medal, National Academy Science, 1949.
Member Hall of Fame American Mechanics Magazine Golden Jubilee, 1952.’ Lecturer and author of papers on variation, heridity and plant-breeding. Founder and managing editor of “Genetics” (mag), 1916-1925, associate editor, since 1925.tempSpaceVice-president Genetics, Incorporated., since 1940. First editor genetics section of Botanical Abstracts, 1918-1922.
Awarded gold medal by DeKalb Agricultural Association, 1940, for the invention of hybrid corn. Citation for distinguished service to agriculture by New Jersey Board of Agriculture, 1945. John Scott medal and premium, 1946.tempSpaceMarcellus Hartley Medal, National Academy Science, 1949.
Member Hall of Fame American Mechanics Magazine Golden Jubilee, 1952.’ Lecturer and author of papers on variation, heridity and plant-breeding. Founder and managing editor of “Genetics” (mag), 1916-1925, associate editor, since 1925.tempSpaceVice-president Genetics, Incorporated., since 1940. First editor genetics section of Botanical Abstracts, 1918-1922.