Scholarship named in honor of UCR plant physiologist

Charles W. Coggins is credited with extending the growing seasons of navel and Valencia oranges

Charles W. Coggins is a professor emeritus of plant physiology in the department of botany and plant sciences at the University of California, Riverside. Click here for more information.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Charles W. Coggins, a UC Riverside plant physiologist whose research on citrus considerably extended the fruits’ fresh market season, has been honored by California Citrus Mutual with the establishment of a scholarship named after him. Each year, the California Citrus Mutual Scholarship Foundation will award the $2000 scholarship to an upper division student in agriculture.

California Citrus Mutual, a trade organization, announced the Charles W. Coggins Scholarship at its March 6, 2008, luncheon meeting in Visalia, Calif., which was attended by nearly 600 people.

During the late 1950s, Coggins found that when gibberellic acid was applied to citrus it delayed senescence – the growth phase from full maturity to death – of the rind. Under field conditions, Coggins transformed this knowledge into sound recommendations that are now standard horticultural practices used not only on oranges and lemons in California, but also in most other citrus-producing countries of the world, including Israel, Spain, South Africa, Australia, Morocco, Turkey and Cuba.

“Charlie is one of few scientists who have done groundbreaking research that has been applicable to a remarkable degree to both fundamental science and practical crop production,” said Donald Cooksey, the interim dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. “The use of gibberellic acid in citrus culture that Charlie pioneered and developed stands out as one of the major applications of plant growth regulators to a crop of worldwide importance.”

Before Coggins’s discovery, the citrus industry’s calendar year was divided approximately into thirds: a Valencia season, a navel season, and four months without fruit. But Coggins’s recommendation of using gibberellic acid extended the growing seasons of navel and Valencia oranges from about nine months to twelve months, providing year-round employment for pickers and packing house workers, and permitting marketing organizations to maintain continuity with their customers.