Education
He graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1898 and initially became a university demonstrator, researching fungi under Harry Marshall Ward.
He graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1898 and initially became a university demonstrator, researching fungi under Harry Marshall Ward.
He published a number of papers on mycology between 1898 and 1902 and subsequently became president of the British Mycological Society in 1905 and again in 1930. In 1908, Biffen was appointed the first professor of agricultural botany at Cambridge, a post he held till 1931. Biffen was the first director of the Plant Breeding Institute, which became part of the John Innes Centre in 1994, and was an early proponent of using genetics to improve crop plants.
Early in his career he traveled to the Americas to study rubber, but his primary research plant was wheat.
Among the most important wheat varieties he bred were Little Joss and Yeoman. He was knighted in 1935.
He died in Cambridge.
Royal Society.