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Professor David Willis Robinson BSc (Hort) MS PhD VMM FI (Hort) (2 April 1928 – 28 March 2004) was a Northern Irish horticultural scientist who made important contributions to the national and international field of horticulture and agriculture throughout his entire life. After a working life in the field of research, retirement saw his life change. He became a journalist and television/radio presenter and, as a sideline, led gardening tours around the world. He managed the Earlscliffe Gardens in Baily, County Dublin. ==Education and early experience== Born in 1928, Robinson worked in horticulture all his life. He obtained his bachelor's degree in horticulture from Reading University, his master's degree from Cornell University (USA) and his doctorate from Queen's University Belfast. He gained practical early experience on a fruit farm near Pershore and a vegetable farm at Musselburgh, East Lothian, Scotland. He worked as horticultural adviser in County Down for the Ministry of Agriculture (1950–53). However, the late 1940s and early 1950s was a time of great food shortages in Europe, and governments were pouring money into horticultural research. New Research Stations were being set up in a number of countries, so in 1953 he was appointed Deputy Director at the newly formed Horticulture Research Centre in Loughgall, County Armagh. His first major job was to help clean up the weed problem in fruit crops. His research into the many chemical tools that were becoming available at the time established him as an expert in this field. However, he had at the time no training in research methods or statistical analysis and felt that he was in a job for which he was inadequately trained. This was soon to change. As Robinson later wrote, ''"I knew early in 1954 that the well endowed W.K. Kellogg Foundation was giving grants to people in Britain to provide further training in the USA for agricultural graduates. I happened to be in London in March 1954 and by pure chance I passed by the headquarters of the Foundation. I still don't know what gave me the courage but I walked in, asked to see the Director (without an appointment) and told him I wanted a Kellogg Foundation Grant to study at Cornell University in New York State for a year. At the time I worked for the Ministry of Agriculture in Northern Ireland, a most bureaucratic organisation, and when I returned all hell was let loose for the Ministry felt (understandably) that they and they alone should decide who would benefit from Kellogg grants. Anyway I was released for a year and spent 1954/55 in the States where I learned a great deal about research and plants. The US had not suffered from the War the way Europe had and it was an exhilarating time."''〔Lecture given to the Howth Peninsula Society, September 1998. Original notes in possession of his wife, Muriel Robinson.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「David Robinson (horticulturist)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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