Raoul A. Robinson is a
Canadian/British plant scientist with more than forty years of wide-ranging global experience in crop improvement for both commercial and subsistence agriculture. He is best known for his application of system theory

Systems theory

Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...

 to crop pathosystem

Pathosystem

A pathosystem is a subsystem of an ecosystem and is defined by the phenomenon of parasitism. A plant pathosystem is one in which the host species is a plant. The parasite is any species in which the individual spends a significant part of its lifespan inhabiting one host individual and obtaining...

s and the elucidation of the concepts of horizontal

Horizontal resistance

In genetics, the term horizontal resistance was first used by J.E. Vanderplank to describe many-gene resistance. This contrasts with the term vertical resistance which was used to describe single-gene resistance. Raoul A. Robinson further refined the definition of horizontal resistance...

 and vertical resistance

Vertical resistance

The term vertical resistance was first used by J.E. Vanderplank to describe single-gene resistance. This contrasted the term horizontal resistance which was used to describe many-gene resistance. Raoul A...

and their implication on breeding for durable resistance.

Career

Over the course of his adventurous and productive career, Dr. Robinson has concentrated most
intensively on maize, potatoes, beans, and coffee. In addition, he has worked with cotton, tomatoes, dates, wheat, alfalfa, cocoa, cassava, coconut, tobacco, taro, sweet potato, vanilla, black pepper, and other crops.

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