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Peter Henry Rolfs

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Peter Henry Rolfs
BornApril 17, 1865
Died1944
Alma materIowa State University
Known forFounding the Universidade Federal de Viçosa
Scientific career
FieldsAgriculture
InstitutionsUniversity of Florida

Peter Henry Rolfs (1865–1944) was a prominent Florida agronomist in the early 20th century. He directed the Florida Agriculture Experiment Station from 1905 to 1920, and from 1915 to 1920 served as the Dean of the College of Agriculture at the University of Florida. Rolfs then moved to Brazil to found the Escola Superior de Agricultura e Veterinária in Viçosa, Minas Gerais, renamed to Universidade Federal de Viçosa.

Rolfs was the first to describe a common plant disease in 1892 called Southern Blight caused by a sterile fungus first named in 1911 as Sclerotium rolfsii and now named Agroathelia rolfsii in honor of his pioneering research on the fungus blight.

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