page_title: Luther Burbank
section_title: Burbank creations
hierarchical_section_title: Luther Burbank / Life and work / Burbank creations
context_page_description: Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science.
  He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. He developed a spineless cactus and the plumcot.
  Burbank's most successful strains and varieties include the Shasta daisy, the fire poppy, the "July Elberta" peach, the "Santa Rosa" plum, the "Flaming Gold" nectarine, the "Wickson" plum, the freestone peach, and the white blackberry. A natural genetic variant of the Burbank potato with russet-colored skin later became known as the russet Burbank potato. This large, brown-skinned, white-fleshed potato has become the world's predominant potato in food processing. The Russet Burbank potato was in fact invented to help with the devastating situation in Ireland following the Great Famine. This particular potato variety was created by Burbank to help "revive the country's leading crop" as it is slightly late blight-resistant.
context_section_description: Burbank created hundreds of new varieties of fruits (plum, pear, prune, peach, blackberry, raspberry);  potato, tomato; ornamental flowers and other plants. He introduced over 800 new plants, including flowers, grains, grasses, vegetables, cacti, and fruits.
  Fruits
  113 plums and prunes
  69 nuts
  35 fruiting cactus
  16 blackberries
  13 raspberries
  11 quinces
  11 plumcots
  10 cherries
  10 strawberries
  10 apples
  8 peaches
  6 chestnuts
  5 nectarines
  4 grapes
  4 pears
  3 walnuts
  2 figs
  1 almond
  Grains, grasses, forage
  9 types
  Vegetables
  26 types
  Ornamentals
  91 types
  Burbank was criticized by scientists of his day because he did not keep the kind of careful records that are the norm in scientific research and because he was mainly interested in getting results rather than in basic research. Purdue University professor Jules Janick, writing in the 2004 World Book Encyclopedia, says: "Burbank cannot be considered a scientist in the academic sense."
  Although Burbank may not have been a scientist by modern standards, his lack of record keeping reflects the era in which he lived. His innovations were revolutionary, and in a time when there was no way to legally protect one's inventions, Burbank may have been cautious with the successes he decided to document. Additionally, his records may not have been coherent (to the chagrin of modern scholars) because he felt his time was better valued in the garden, not writing each trial and error down in his record book.
  In 1893, Burbank published a descriptive catalog of some of his best varieties, entitled New Creations in Fruits and Flowers.
  In 1907, Burbank published an "essay on childrearing", called The Training of the Human Plant. In it, he advocated improved treatment of children.
  During his career, Burbank wrote and co-wrote several books on his methods and results, including his eight-volume How Plants Are Trained to Work for Man (1921), Harvest of the Years (with Wilbur Hall, 1927), Partner of Nature (1939), and the 12-volume Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Application.
caption: Shasta daisy
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