In Respectful Memory

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In Respectful Memory

• John McColl Bremner
• 1922 - 2007

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John McColl Bremner

• A heritage for
• Understanding Soil Nitrogen,
• Organic Matter
• and Biomass
• by
• John Pesek

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John M. Bremner

• Impact of Jack Bremners research and
  publications on our knowledge about soil organic
  matter, nitrogen and biomass and their effects in
  Iowa

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Career in Short

• Born January 22, 1922, Dumbarton, Scot.
• Died July 27, 2007, Palm Desert, Calif.
• B. S., Pure Science, Univ. Glasgow, 1944
• Ph.D., Chemistry, London Univ. 1948
• D.Sc., Soil Chem. London Univ. 1959
• D.Sc., Honorary, Univ. of Glasgow 1987
• Rothamsted Expt. Station, 1945-1959
• Iowa State University, 1959-retirement

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Salient Career Features

• N transformations at Rothamsted
• S transformations at Iowa State
• Analytical methods published SSSA Mono.
• Global research based on the above
• Expert in soil N, S and P
• Helped inspire soil enzymology at ISU
• Profuse publications with co-workers
• National Academy of Science Member 1984

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Why Iowa State?

• The 1891 Soil Chemistry course included
  mechanical and chemical sources of available
  nitrogen, the nitrogen gatherers, nitrification,
  reduction of nitrates, losses of nitrogen, and
  its conservation on the farm.
• Soil bacteriology included in Agronomy curriculum
  from the start in 1902.

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Why Iowa State? continued

• First two doctorates conferred on Charles Davis
  and Paul Emerson in Agronomy were in soil
  bacteriology the second and third from Iowa
  State College in 1917.
• There have been one or more state or federal soil
  bacteriologists on our faculty since P.E. Brown,
  A.G. Norman, F.E. Clark, W. V. Bartholomew, D.T.
  Parker, L.R. Frederick.

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In His Own Words (IHOW)

• In the Chemistry Department at Rothamsted he was
  to initiate a program of research to
  characterize the organic complexes in soil in
  1945.
• He added none of the techniques available to
  organic chemists at that time were likely to be
  of significant value if applied to the humic
  acids and other complex organic materials in
  soils.

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IHOW paper chromatography

• At the onset of paper chromatography no
  equipment for paper chromatography was available
  when I started.
• He rigged apparatus of drain pipes and long
  sections of glass tubing modified to serve as
  troughs for the organic solvents and hold the
  large sheets of Whatman filter paper sheets in
  place.

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IHOW enter Mary Williams

• The sheets of filter paper were too large to
  handle alone and he had no assistant. His
  solution I had a very talented girl friend,
  Mary Williams in the Microbiology Department ,
  and she provided valuable assistance .
• He met her playing tennis and field hockey on
  Rothamsted teams they married in 1950 all was
  well.

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IHOW success and difficulty

• He credited publications on estimation of amino
  acids and amino sugars in soils and humic acids
  leading to four months with Wolfgang Flaig at
  Braunschweig, W.G., and time at other European
  labs.
• Afflicted with stammer since he was five, he
  wrote, it has always disappeared during party
  time.

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IHOW he had to teach

• Facing a new course and system, no teaching
  experience and no text he emulated his best
  teacher who used a lot of handouts and
  visuals.
• Looking back, he concluded I probably
  distributed too much material at each lecture
  because my students had exceptionally large
  notebooks at the end of the course.

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IHOW mentoring

• His brother, Alex, was an informal mentor
  steering him into a degree program in chemistry
  instead of English and History, and also
  encouraged Jack to compete for scholarships at
  the University of Glasgow.
• He wrote I had no mentor when working towards
  a Ph.D. degree from the University of London
  because mentoring during this degree was rare in
  Britain .

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IHOW mentor substitutes

• Role models replaced lack of mentors, and he
  wrote I had great admiration and respect for
  scientists who developed techniques that
  permitted breakthroughs in research or wrote with
  great grace and clarity, and I encouraged my
  graduate students to read papers by these
  scientists.

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IHOW first substitute

• I recall that when the first really large cash
  award for scientific writing was created, it was
  given to G. Evelyn Hutchinson, the author I had
  been recommending to my graduate students for the
  high quality of his articles.

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IHOW second substitute

• About another role model I came across the
  publications of Donald D. Van Slyke, who
  developed numerous methods for blood analysis
  at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. I
  greatly admired his work because he subjected the
  methods he developed to very rigorous tests for
  both accuracy and specificity and was an
  exceptionally thorough researcher.

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IHOW his students

• I obtained a great deal of satisfaction from
  watching the development of my graduate students
  during their M. S. and Ph. D. research and it was
  a real pleasure for me to follow the achievements
  of these students since leaving ISU.

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IHOW pride in graduates

• There was no doubt in his pride in them because
  Among these were deans, directors of research
  centers or heads of departments at universities,
  several have served as presidents of the American
  Society of Agronomy and the Soil Science Society
  of America, and many received major research
  awards from these societies.

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What Others Wrote (WOW)

• J.P. Quirk wrote At the stage when he
  commenced these studies in the mid-forties, our
  knowledge of organic matter was very poor indeed.
  As a result of his work on the extraction of
  organic matter, its composition and its
  macro-molecular properties we now have a deeper
  appreciation of the attributes of soil ?-?

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WOW, Quirk Contd

• organic matter and the profound role it has in
  influencing soil fertility. This research formed
  an essential back ground to his later studies
  concerned more particularly with organic matter
  as a substrate for micro-organism attack in
  relation to nutrient cycles.

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WOW, from Rothamsted

• D.S. Jenkinson agreed Bremner laid the
  foundations for his work and pointed to
  identifying and then measuring alpha amino acid
  nitrogen, amino sugar nitrogen and fixed ammonium
  nitrogen in soil.
• Twenty-five years after Jack left he wrote His
  style of work, with its drive, enthusiasm and
  emphasis on careful analytical work, is still
  part of Rothamsted folk-lore.

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WOW as an analyst

• Victor Kilmer commented Jack Bremner is the
  soils mans sic Bureau of Standards.
• F.J. Stevenson wrote His pioneering research
  on nitrogen and sulfur transformations in soil
  has revolutionized current thinking on the
  nature, origin, and source of nitrogen and sulfur
  constituents in the atmosphere.

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WOW as a soil scientist

• Quirk summarized
• Dr. Bremners contribution in any one of these
  areas would place him amongst the worlds leading
  soil scientists and indeed his total achievement
  must place him amongst a handful of distinguished
  soil scientists in this century.

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Teaching and Mentoring at ISU

• Developed and taught advanced soil biochemistry
  during his whole career
• Mentored 22 students in 23 degrees (six M. S. and
  seventeen Ph. D.)
• The first was James A. Silva in 1964 the last
  was Gregory W. McCarty in 1989 who completed the
  M. S. (1985) and Ph. D.
• All learned to write solid research papers

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Research Funding

• Began career at ISU when appropriated funding was
  the norm
• Records of external funding before 1980 have been
  discarded
• Since then he brought in at least 1.5
• million
• Claimed funds from Regional Project,
• NE-146, Gains, losses and management of soil
  nitrogen for six years

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OPS worked with visiting scholars

• Attracted international scholars to ISU from
• Australia Malaysia
• China Pakistan
• England Portugal
• Finland Russia
• Germany Scotland
• Japan Sweden India Switzerland

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OPS world travels

• International Atomic Energy Association, Yugo.
• Pontifical Academy of Sciences, The Vatican
• University of Adelaide
• University of Costa Rica
• University of London
• University of New England
• University of Queensland
• University of Western Australia
• University of the West Indies

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Outreach and Professional Service (OPS)

• Assoc. Ed., Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. Proc.
• Reg. Ed., Soil Biology and Biochemistry
• Consult. Ed., Agrochimica
• Consult. Ed., Journal of Soil Science
• Ed. Bd., Amer. Soc. Agronomy Mono.,
• Nitrogen in
  Agricultural Soils

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OPS evaluator and reviewer

• National Science Foundation
• Research Applied to National Needs
• Energy Research and Development Adm.
• Environmental Protection Agency
• United States Department of Agriculture
• United States Department of Energy
• United States National Academy of
  Sciences

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OPS paper reviewing and editing

• Analytical Biochemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Environmental Science and Technology
• Geophysical Research Letters
• Journal of Geophysical Research
• Nature
• Science
• Tellus

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Helping solve mundane problems

• New N fertilizers with TVA
• Isotope N analyses to assess sources of surface
  water contaminants
• Cultivation effect on N distribution
• Index of soil N availability to crops
• Urea hydrolysis and its significance in use
• Inhibition of urease action in soil

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Helping solve mundane problems

• Ureas effect on seed germination
• Phytotoxicity of urea in foliar application
• Effect of herbicides on urea hydrolysis
• Effect of pesticides on N transformations
• Inhibiting nitrification of ammonium
• (patent)
• Sulfur loss from manure application

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Bremner heritage to soil science and ISU

• Over 300 refereed papers or book chapters
• Methods of analyses for N compounds
• One patent relating to nitrification
• Three remarkable faculty members at ISU
• Dennis Keeney
• Ali Tabatabai
• Alfred Blackmer

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Dennis Keeney

• Keeney was an early graduate student, and after a
  brilliant career at the University of Wisconsin
  he returned to ISU as the first director of the
  Leopold Center for Sustain-able Agriculture thus
  set its course
• He proposed on-farm testing in an address to
  the First International Crop Science Congress in
  1992.

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Ali Tabatabai

• Tabatabai was an associate working with Jack
  after completing doctoral study and brought
  skills in sulfur research to accelerate the
  sulfur work at ISU
• He initiated his own formal project on the study
  of enzymes in soils and became globally
  recognized as a leader in soil enzymology.

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Alfred Blackmer

• Blackmer continued as a member of the faculty
  after completing doctoral study with Jack, and
  was committed to help farmers make better
  decisions with regard to use of fertilizer,
  especially nitrogen, on farms, and to the
  environment
• He made on-farm testing in direct active
  cooperation with farmers an accepted and widely
  adopted practice in soils research

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In retrospectwhat if?

• There were only six Bremner children
• Alex had not encouraged him to chemistry
• There was no scholarship at Glasgow Univ.
• Hed known more about soil organic matter
• And did not accept Rothamsted offer
• Had not played tennis and field hockey
• Had not encountered Mary Williams
• He was not nominated for Rockefeller travel

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In retrospectwhat if?

• He had not spent five months at ISU
• His family had not liked it in Iowa and US
• W.H. Pierre had not persisted in employing him
• We had no spectrometry capabilities at ISU
• Art Edwards was not on the ISU faculty
• Ali Tabatabai had not stayed at ISU
• There were no Soil Science Monographs
• He chose not to travel abroad

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Final comment

• Jacks family and he could make only one choice
  at a time, and it is the unique series of choices
  and events in his lifetime that placed him among
  the most prominent of soil scientists, and whose
  legacy not only encompasses our knowledge of soil
  organic matter and nitrogen chemistry, but in
  several other dimensions of soils and our
  profession. I think we are fortunate that we
  lived and worked with Jack for several decades.

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Read more about Jack Bremner

• Archives for John M.
• Bremner
• May be found at
• http//www.ag.iastate.
• edu/stories/archives
• 2008spring/bremner.php

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Archiving your presentation

• If you are willing to archive your paper about
  Jack, send the electronic version to me.
• jpesek_at_iastate.edu
• It will be on the web site of the
• College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
• and a hard copy in the
• University Archives.

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