He waded through Colombian swamps, trekked across the high Andes in Peru and Chile, and once sailed to the Galapagos Islands in a leaky "wooden tub" that lost its propeller. All in pursuit of the wild tomato.
Charles M. Rick, a world-renowned plant geneticist and botanist who was widely considered to be the leading authority on the biology of the tomato, died May 5 from multiple health problems in a retirement home in Davis. He was 87.
For much of his more than 60 years as a professor in the department of vegetable crops at UC Davis, Rick traveled extensively to collect hundreds of wild tomato species that contained a wide range of genetic variation that was absent from the modern domestic tomato.
Rick made landmark contributions in the areas of plant genetics, evolution, genome mapping and archiving the seeds of tomatoes and related plant species.
"He is really one of the world's leading plant geneticists," said UC Davis professor John Yoder, chairman of the department of vegetable crops. "He did a lot to make the tomato a real vegetable commodity, to make it as popular as it is today."
But equally important, Yoder added, "were his contributions to just basic plant genetics in plant biology: He did more than just develop the tomato as a commodity crop; he really used the tomato to ask fundamental questions about plant biology."
In 1967, Rick was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. It's one of the highest honors awarded to research scientists.
"He is Mr. Tomato," former Secretary of Agriculture Clayton Yeutter said of Rick in 1997 when Rick received the first $200,000 Filippo Maseri Florio world prize for agriculture research for his work on the tomato.
"Among people who have had an influence on a particular commodity," Yeutter said, "his work on the tomato will be felt by many generations."
"My career has just been a succession of exciting discoveries," Rick said at the time. "I am the last person who needs to be honored. I'm the one who has had all the fun."
Born and reared in Reading, Pa., Rick's lifelong interest in plants was sparked by working in orchards as a boy and participating in nature studies with the Boy Scouts.
He earned his bachelor's degree in horticulture in 1937 from Pennsylvania State University and a doctoral degree in genetics from Harvard University in 1940.
Rick and his wife, Martha, moved to Davis in 1940, when he joined the faculty of the university's vegetable crops department.
