Hugh Ermen, the English fruit breeder died just before Christmas 2009. An obituary is published on our main web-site which you can read here and we have received the following tributes from friends and colleagues.
When I started at Brogdale in the Summer of 1965, fresh from school, it was Hugh that took me under his wing. Over the next few years he continually shared his already extensive knowledge of fruit growing with me. I accompanied him on walks through the fruit collections, helped him record the results from the variety trials and spent long hours at weekends in the Spring helping him carry out pollination compatibility tests on potted fruit trees in the Brogdale glasshouses. It is to him I owe my lifelong interest and career in fruit growing.
But Hugh was interested in many other things than growing apples! He was a great fan (and daily rider) of the Moulton folding bicycle, a great photographer (it is to him I owe my love of photography too) and he that introduced me to the arcane world of printed circuit boards and self- build miniature transistorised radios.
After seven years I left Brogdale to read Horticulture at Wye College before a career as a fruit adviser with ADAS. But I will always be grateful to Hugh for those early years of encouragement and gifts of knowledge that he so generously bestowed!
John Partis
Fruit Forum’s obituary for Hugh Ermen was much appreciated as one who knew Hugh over 45 years of ‘sparring’ on ‘fruiticultural’ matters. We shared a mutual passion for fruit trees, with Hugh and his dear friend John Bultitude fuelling my early stages of coming to know the subtleties of pomology when they both were at Brogdale (where my wife joined them as MAFF PVRO Officer in the late 1960s). I owe Hugh and John a huge debt of gratitude in giving time and trouble in preparing me for professional examinations (RHS MHort).
He was indeed one of the ‘special ones’, having original thought on traditional practices to widen the debate over getting better results from our trees. His knowledge of pollination from work on pollen compatibility was masterly, his propagation skills were unsurpassed, leading him to promote ‘trees on their own roots’. But his greatest skill, like that of a thoroughbred horse, dog or cattle breeder was recognising the parental attributes for potential improvement, whether better flavour, resistance to pathogens, or improved productivity. His living legacy is in our fruit gardens in the form of a stable of really good apple cultivars, all true thoroughbreds. Hugh was a unique ‘one-off’, and I doubt we will ever see a ‘reincarnation’ or another bearing such gifts. I can readily imagine him arguing it out with St Peter in Paradise as to whether the Tree of Knowledge should have been founded on its own roots or a new fangled East Malling rootstock! When The New Book of Apples is updated in 2050 or 2100 the name of Hugh Ermen is certain to still crop up. Meantime we will miss him sorely.
Malcolm Withnall
Read Full Post »
Fruit Forum 