The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Duncan, 78, leaves legacy of research
Plant pathologist Dr James Duncan, Jim to those who knew him, has died at the age of 78. He spent more than 30 years at the James Hutton Institute, formerly the Scottish Crop Research Institute, where he rose to become head of the Mycology and Bacteriology Department.
In 2003, the year he retired, he was awarded the MBE for services to agricultural research.
Jim was born in the mining village of Salsburgh, Lanarkshire, the youngest of five children.
His formative education was at Shottskirk Primary School and then at Airdrie Academy, after which he went to Glasgow University.
After graduating with a first-class honours degree in botany, he continued to study a bacterial disease of potato, erwinia atroseptica, at the university, receiving his PhD in 1969.
Thereafter, he pursued a two-year post-doctorate Fellowship at the National Research Council of
Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On returning to Scotland in 1971 he took up a position as a plant pathologist at the then Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) in Invergowrie.
He supported and advised local fruit growers and via collaborations with scientists worldwide, years of fieldwork and careful laboratory analysis, advanced the study of redcore of strawberry disease and root rot of raspberry.
Later in his career he applied his knowledge of Phytophthora pathogens to the study of potato late blight and ran many international projects.
An inspirational and engaging scientist, his career generated, in his words, “a trained corps” of pathologists from Britain and overseas. Thus the building of a European network of potato late blight researchers remains as a legacy of his work to this day, some 18 years after his retirement.
Jim championed the rights of all SCRI staff in the 1980s, served as membership secretary of the British Society of Plant Pathology and, in later years, enjoyed the activities of the Scotia Club.
Outside of work he read, loved his garden, was keen on sport, especially football, and was a past president of the Western Club.
His greatest passion was golf. Over the years he had two holes-in-one and won several trophies.
He was chairman of the Caledonian League for some years, a junior convener at Downfield Golf Club and served there as captain from 1998 to 2000.
He and his wife, Isabel, met at university, married in 1966 and have two children, Margaret and William.
Isabel said: “He was a wonderful man with a great sense of humour. He was intelligent, loving, witty, generous, kind and very much the guiding light of the family. Above all he was a devoted husband, father and grandpa to our four grandsons.”