Dear Forpathers

 

I’m writing to say that Peter Gadgil passed away over the weekend. I know many of you won’t know Peter but there are some of you who do. Until very recently Peter was working at Scion in a mentoring role as well as fulfilling his lifetime passion of describing new fungi. As late as last week he expressed a desire to return to work as soon as his mobility improved.  Sadly that will not happen, but his legacy will continue.

 

Peter started here in 1964, when he was recruited to work on dothistroma needle blight, a new disease of Pinus radiata in New Zealand. His fundamental work in the 1960s on the infection process of the pathogen and its epidemiology was critical to the development of a successful control programme that is still in use today. Recent research using advanced molecular techniques that weren’t available in the 1960s have demonstrated Peter’s findings in his 1967 publication “Infection of Pinus radiata needles by Dothistroma pini” were correct. In the 1970s Peter and his wife Ruth published two papers on the interaction of mycorrhiza and other soil organisms that is still described today as the “Gadgil effect”.  In 2005, Peter published a book describing over 700 fungi associated with woody plants in New Zealand. This book was hailed as the first comprehensive reference book ever produced on fungi that live in New Zealand's forests.

 

Peter, as Research Leader of the Forest Health Group, was a pioneer of the transition from a purely Government funded research programme to one funded by industry and Government. Peter was the main driver behind the development of the New Zealand forest grower funded surveillance and diagnostic services, and the Forest Health Research Collaborative which was a precursor to the Biosecurity Technical Steering Team we have now.

 

Peter was never afraid to voice his opinion, often in a forthright manner, but those who worked closely with him understood this and developed strategies to work around that. We were also never left in any doubt about what his view on a specific matter was! For all that, Peter helped me and many others develop in their careers through his helpful advice and mentorship and he will always be regarded as one of New Zealand’s eminent forest pathologists.

 

Lindsay Bulman

 

Lindsay Bulman
Science Leader Forest Protection

Acting General Manager Forest Science

Scion

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