Charles Rick, 87; Plant Geneticist Was Expert on Tomato Biology
He waded through Colombian swamps, trekked across the high Andes in Peru and Chile, and once sailed to the Galapagos Islands in a leaky “wooden tub” that lost its propeller. All in pursuit of the wild tomato.
Charles M. Rick, a world-renowned plant geneticist and botanist who was widely considered to be the leading authority on the biology of the tomato, died May 5 from multiple health problems in a retirement home in Davis. He was 87.
For much of his more than 60 years as a professor in the department of vegetable crops at UC Davis, Rick traveled extensively to collect hundreds of wild tomato species that contained a wide range of genetic variation that was absent from the modern domestic tomato.
Rick made landmark contributions in the areas of plant genetics, evolution, genome mapping and archiving the seeds of tomatoes and related plant species.
“He is really one of the world’s leading plant geneticists,” said UC Davis professor John Yoder, chairman of the department of vegetable crops. “He did a lot to make the tomato a real vegetable commodity, to make it as popular as it is today.”
But equally important, Yoder added, “were his contributions to just basic plant genetics in plant biology: He did more than just develop the tomato as a commodity crop; he really used the tomato to ask fundamental questions about plant biology.”
In 1967, Rick was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. It’s one of the highest honors awarded to research scientists.
“He is Mr. Tomato,” former Secretary of Agriculture Clayton Yeutter said of Rick in 1997 when Rick received the first $200,000 Filippo Maseri Florio world prize for agriculture research for his work on the tomato.
“Among people who have had an influence on a particular commodity,” Yeutter said, “his work on the tomato will be felt by many generations.”
“My career has just been a succession of exciting discoveries,” Rick said at the time. “I am the last person who needs to be honored. I’m the one who has had all the fun.”
Born and reared in Reading, Pa., Rick’s lifelong interest in plants was sparked by working in orchards as a boy and participating in nature studies with the Boy Scouts.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in horticulture in 1937 from Pennsylvania State University and a doctoral degree in genetics from Harvard University in 1940.
Rick and his wife, Martha, moved to Davis in 1940, when he joined the faculty of the university’s vegetable crops department.
He began his research on the tomato the same year when a senior faculty member suggested that Rick investigate what was wrong with “bull” tomato plants, which seemed to pour all their energy into vegetative growth without producing fruit.
Rick went on to discover many genetic conditions in the sterile tomato plants, and was able to identify the genetic causes for flower infertility and define several single-gene mutants that are now used to provide commercial hybrid tomato seed.
His studies led him to begin his pioneering effort to map the tomato’s entire collection of genes, now known as its genome.
To encourage tomato researchers to communicate their findings and exchange information, Rick co-founded the Tomato Genetics Cooperative in 1949.
About that time, he also founded and served as curator for the Tomato Genetics Resource Center at UC Davis, the largest known collection of tomato seeds in the world.
Many primitive varieties and wild species that were collected and maintained at the center are now extinct in their native habitats, according to the university’s scientists.
And many of the unique mutant tomato stocks developed by researchers throughout the world would have been lost without Rick’s efforts to archive them.
In recognition of his efforts, the center was renamed the Charles M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center in 1990.
In 1998, he was inducted into the American Society of Horticultural Sciences Hall of Fame.
Until he retired for health reasons at 85, Rick continued to ride his bicycle to the university every morning as a professor emeritus, and he worked summers in a 3-acre tomato field in Yolo County.
“He clearly did the work because of his love of biology and his love of discovery,” said Yoder. “The other remarkable thing with him was his ability to share that love of scientific discovery, and he was a real role model for a number of people.”
His wife died in 1983. He is survived by his daughter, Susan Baldi, of Santa Rosa; his son, John, of Menlo Park; three grandchildren; and a great-grandson.
A scholarship fund is being established in Rick’s memory that will help support South American students and scholars interested in promoting biodiversity in the Andes. Contributions should be made payable to the Charles Rick Scholarship Fund and sent in care of Professor John Yoder, Department of Vegetable Crops, University of California, 1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616-8687.
