Dr. Leonard Pike, Professor and Vegetable Breeder, has
retired after 40 + years of service to the Department of Horticultural
Sciences and The Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. Dr. Pike’s
accomplishments are numerous but his most notable is the development
of the 1015 Y sweet short-day onion. It has been estimated that this
one variety has produced in excess of $100,000,000 dollars for the Texas
economy and is the basis for most of the sweet short-day onion varieties
in use in the US today. In addition, Dr. Pike was the founding father
of the Vegetable Improvement Center at Texas A&M University. The
focus of the center is the enhancement of health benefits of vegetables
and fruit to reduce human disease problems associated with diet.
Dr. Pike’s tireless efforts on behalf of the Texas Vegetable Industry
will be missed. We wish him well in his retirement.
