A prickly business—Edward Shelton, Henry Tryon and the mysterious pineapple disease

Malcolm J. Ryley; Andre Drenth

doi:10.1071/HR23008

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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A prickly business—Edward Shelton, Henry Tryon and the mysterious pineapple disease

Malcolm J. Ryley

^A ^* and Andre Drenth ^B

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

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

^B Centre for Horticultural Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: cropdocs61@gmail.com

Historical Records of Australian Science 35(2) 130-141 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23008

Published online: 24 November 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

The earliest record of pineapple plants being grown around Sydney in the British colony of New South Wales was that of Governor King in 1803. However, the climate of a new northern settlement at Moreton Bay (later Brisbane) soon proved to be far more conducive to growing the fruit. Pineapples prospered for over 50 years around Brisbane until a mysterious disease appeared in the late 1890s. In April 1891, Professor Edward Shelton, an American who had been appointed as the Queensland government’s first Instructor in Agriculture, was the first scientist to inspect the affected crops and concluded that the disease was caused by a fungus. In the following year, Shelton, Henry Tryon (then assistant curator at the Queensland Museum) and others again inspected the diseased pineapple crops. Tryon described the symptoms in detail as well as spores which were composed of two rounded elements, each having a double contour (chlamydospores). There is no doubt that the disease was caused by the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi that was described decades later. In 1897, Shelton was passionate about agricultural education and was appointed as the first principal of the Gatton Agricultural College, but his disciplining of some students of the college led to his forced resignation just 18 months later.

Keywords: chlamydospores, disease, Edward Shelton, Gatton Agricultural College, Henry Tryon, Phytophthora cinnamomi, pineapple, symptoms.

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