Abstract
Pursue the truth, devote to education: Chen Hua-Kui, a respectable educator and pioneer of China's soil microbiology.
Highlights
Chen first discovered that before the root hair of a crop was infected by rhizobia, a hormone secreted by rhizobia was responsible for extending and curling root hair
In an artificial inoculation test, he discovered that the root-nodule bacteria of Astragalus did not produce nodules on other genera of leguminous plants, nor did bacteria isolated from other sources form nodules on Astragalus plants, except Desmodium heterophyllum, proving that Astragalus and its root-nodule bacteria must be considered as a select crossinoculation group
The research result was published in Soil Science in May 1944 (Chen and Shu 1944), which provided the theoretical evidence for large scale artificial inoculation of Rhizobium astragali
Summary
The following year, Chen began his postgraduate education in the bacteriology laboratory of Rothamsted Experimental Station, England, under the guidance of Dr Henry Gerard Thornton. There, he undertook research into the symbiotic nitrogen fixation of leguminous plant and rhizobia, and began an over-a-half-century career of soil science and research.
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