Henry Tryon—the true discoverer of the potato brown rot pathogen, Ralstonia solanacearum

Malcolm J. Ryley

doi:10.1071/HR23007

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Henry Tryon—the true discoverer of the potato brown rot pathogen, Ralstonia solanacearum

Malcolm J. Ryley

^A ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Centre for Crop Health, University of Southern Queensland, West Street, Toowoomba, Qld 4350, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: cropdocs61@gmail.com

Historical Records of Australian Science 35(2) 142-150 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23007

Published online: 19 December 2023

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Within a few years of the establishment of the convict settlement at Sydney Cove, the potato became one of the staple crops of the population due to its relatively high yield and the prior experience of the convicts and free settlers with growing the crop. In 1894, Henry Tryon described a new disease in southern Queensland that caused rapid wilting of plants, a ring of slightly translucent tissue just below the surface of affected tubers, oozing of a thick, white fluid from the ‘eyes’, and ultimately rotting of the tubers. It soon became known as ‘Tryon’s disease’. He found that a microbe (bacterium) was always associated with affected tubers and stems, provided a very brief description of the bacterial cells and named the microbe Bacillus vascularum solani. A few years later the American scientist Erwin Frink Smith wrote a paper on a new disease (brown rot) of solanaceous plants including the potato and tomato, in which he called the causal agent Pseudomonas solanacearum, now known as Ralstonia solanacearum. Smith dismissed Tryon’s prior claim to the discovery of the disease with some of his comments being personal and scathing. Tryon had the last word, however, cloaking his response in restrained and somewhat convoluted tones.

Keywords: Bacillus solanacearum, bacterial wilt, brown rot, Erwin Frink Smith, Henry Tryon, potato, Ralstonia solanacearum, Tryon’s disease.

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