Thomas Andrew Knight

1759-1838 English

Thomas Andrew Knight

Pionero en fisiología vegetal

Thomas Andrew Knight fue un horticultor y botánico británico. Sirvió como el segundo presidente de la Royal Horticultural Society (1811–1838). Nació en Wormesley Grange, a cinco millas al noroeste de Hereford en Herefordshire, segundo hijo del reverendo Thomas Knight (1697–1764) de Wormsley Grange, rector de Bewdley en Worcestershire, y de su esposa Ursula Nash, hija de Frederick Nash de Dinham en Shropshire. He attended Balliol College, Oxford. After graduation, he took up the study of horticulture. Attention was first called to his work in 1795 by the publication of the results of his research into the propagation of fruit trees and the diseases prevalent among them. He used 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of land he inherited to conduct breeding of plants including strawberries, cabbages and peas and built an extensive greenhouse. In 1797 he published his Treatise on the Culture of the Apple and Pear, and on the Manufacture of Cider and Perry, a work which passed through several editions. He was one of the leading students of horticulture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but his personal papers disappeared after his death. Knight realizó experimentos fisiológicos básicos en plantas, una labor que anteriormente solo se había llevado a cabo raramente. Aclaró los efectos de la gravedad sobre las plántulas y cómo la pudrición en los árboles frutales se transmitía mediante el injerto.

Artworks by this artist (30 total)