We were sad to learn that Tom Corby passed away in January shortly before reaching his 100th birthday. Tom was one of the absolute front runners in research on the legume-rhizobium symbiosis in Africa, and in the world. He established the inoculant production factory at Grasslands, Marondera in 1962, which produces inoculants to this day. In 2011, Tom wrote a short history of the establishment of the factory called "The Bagacillo Legume-Inoculant". Also in the early 1960s he conducted multi-locational field trials examining soyabean variety by inoculant strain interactions across Zimbabwe and Zambia (what were then southern and northern Rhodesia). He is perhaps best know in the research world for his ground breaking work on legume nodule morphology which was the basis of his PhD. A full obituary by Janet Sprent is published this month in the New Phytologist – LINK
Ken Giller
Some comments Tom’s doughter Susan sent in after the article was published, having witnessed her father’s attention to detail:
Tom’s father suggested that he be apprenticed to a pharmacist but he never was;
Photograph courtesy should read: of Arthur Bain;
Tom did all his agricultural training at Guelph University.