Plant Pathologist Dr James Duncan, Jim to those who knew him, has died at the age of 78.
He spent more than 30 years at the James Hutton Institute, formerly the Scottish Crop Research Institute, where he rose to become head of the Mycology and Bacteriology Department.
In 2003, the year he retired, he was awarded the MBE for services to agricultural research.
Beginnings
Jim was born in the little mining village of Salsburgh, Lanarkshire, the youngest of five children.
His formative education was at Shottskirk Primary School and then at Airdrie Academy after which he gained entry to Glasgow University.
After graduating with a first-class honours degree in Botany, he continued to study a bacterial disease of potato, erwinia atroseptica, at the university, receiving his PhD in 1969.
Canada
Thereafter, he pursued a two-year post-doctorate Fellowship at the National Research Council of Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On returning to Scotland in 1971 he took up a position as a plant pathologist at the then SCRI in Invergowrie.
There his research focused on countering significant threats to the thriving soft fruit industry in Tayside and beyond.
Fruit study
He supported and advised local fruit growers and via collaborations with scientists worldwide, years of fieldwork and careful laboratory analysis, advanced the study of red-core of strawberry disease and root rot of raspberry.
He published a series of key papers on the biology and spread of Phytophthora pathogens and established detection protocols and management practices to both limit and prevent their impact.
Indeed, the Duncan Bait Test for strawberry red-core became the standard method in soft fruit health testing.
Potato blight
Later in his career he applied his knowledge of Phytophthora pathogens to the study of potato late blight and ran many international projects to manage the disease.
One of Jim’s many strengths and a prevailing feature of his warm, open, collaborative nature was in identifying and creating networks of researchers.
An inspirational and engaging scientist, his career generated, in his words, “a trained corps” of pathologists from Britain and overseas. Thus the building of a European network of potato late blight researchers remains as a legacy of his work to this day, some 18 years after his retirement.
Jim championed the rights of all SCRI staff in the 1980s, served as membership secretary of the BSPP (British Society of Plant Pathology) and, in later years, enjoyed the activities of the Scotia Club.
Sport
Outside of work he was equally busy and pursued and enjoyed many interests. He read, loved his garden, was keen on sport, especially football, and was a past president of the Western Club.
His greatest passion, however, was golf. Over the years he had two holes-in-one and won several trophies to his great delight.
He was chairman of the Caledonian League for some years, an outstanding junior convenor at Downfield Golf Club and served there as captain from 1998 to 2000.
His role during the Open Qualifying in 1999 helped put Downfield firmly on the golfing map.
Marriage
Jim and his wife, Isabel, met at university, married in 1966 and went on to have two children; a daughter Margaret and a son William, of whom he was most proud.
Isabel said: “He was a wonderful man with a great sense of humour. He was intelligent, loving, witty, generous, kind and very much the guiding light of the family.
“Jim was a hugely interesting person, his knowledge was encyclopaedic and he could always be relied upon for a clear and strong opinion on an impressively wide range of topics beyond science to politics, history and music for example.
“Yet he remained modest and unassuming and endeared himself to everyone he knew and met.
“Above all he was a devoted husband, father and grandpa to our four grandsons. He will be sorely missed and fondly remembered.”
Conversation