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Francis W. Holmes, 77, of Amherst, professor emeritus of Microbiology and former director of the Shade Tree Laboratories, died March 21 under hospice care at Applewood Retirement Community in Amherst.
Born in Yonkers, N.Y., he was raised near Princeton, N.J., and graduated from Princeton High School.
He continued his education with a B.A. in botany/zoology from Oberlin College in 1950 and a doctorate in plant pathology from Cornell University in 1954.
He joined the Department of Plant Pathology as an associate professor in 1954 and was promoted to professor 1970. Through the Shade Tree Laboratories and the Agricultural Experiment Station, he carried out scientific research into tree diseases and provided extension service to residents and tree wardens throughout Massachusetts.
A leader in Dutch elm disease research, he studied inheritance and variation in the virulence and sexuality of the disease-causing fungus. He also studied injury to trees from road salt and discovered a deadly synergism between salt injury and verticillium wilt disease.
In 1961, he created the Plant Pathology Seminar, which brought more than 100 guest speakers to campus during the 26 semesters he led the program.
He became director of the Shade Tree Labs in 1974. Under his leadership, the labs tested about 250,000 elm samples for Dutch elm disease and consulted on 45,000 other diagnoses of diseases and injuries affecting more than 150 other kinds of trees.
In response to inquiries from homeowners, Holmes produced and compiled some 500 fact sheets on tree diseases and insects. In recognition of his efforts, the International Society of Arboriculture awarded him its Author Citation Award in 1980.
He taught a course on “Shade Tree Diseases” to more than a 1,000 students in the Stockbridge School, where he was twice honored as an Outstanding Professor.
For decades, he conducted training sessions on shade tree diseases for Extension agents from the state’s 14 counties. His Shade Tree Education Program (STEP) provided support to arborists, landscapers, nursery managers, utilities and other businesses as well as state, county and local officials.
He spent three sabbatical research years in the Netherlands, twice as a Fulbright Scholar. While in the Netherlands, he learned to speak, write and read Dutch and the devoted his free time to research the background for a monograph about six Dutch women scientists who discovered the correct cause of the Dutch elm disease in the 1920s and ’30s. The work was published as part of the Phytopathological Classics series.
He also wrote a book on Massachusetts shade tree laws and another on Dutch elm disease.
He was also a National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellow. He lectured and conducted research in England, Yugoslavia, India and New Zealand.
He was editor of the monthly Tree News, which was sent to 2,000 professional arborists in the United States. For the state Department of Environmental Management, he recorded the largest tree of each species in Massachusetts, publishing New England Records of Champion Trees four times. He also chaired the research committee for the International Society of Arboriculture and served as membership secretary for its New England chapter.
He was a Corresponding Member of the Royal Dutch Botanical Society and an honorary life member of the International Society of Arboriculture, Massachusetts Tree Wardens’ & Foresters’ Association, Massachusetts Arborists Association and the Massachusetts and New England cemeteries associations.
In 1990, he received the Massachusetts Tree Wardens’ & Foresters’ Association’s highest honor, the George E. Stone Award. In 1979, he was given the National Arbor Day Foundation’s Public Relations Award and in 1980, he received an Environmental Merit Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
He retired from the faculty in 1991.
He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Helen (Bequaert) “Becky” Holmes; his daughter, Virginia, of Lancaster, Calif.; and two sons, Peter, of Littleton, and Joseph, of Acton, and three grandchildren
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