page_title: Herbert John Webber
section_title: Professional life
hierarchical_section_title: Herbert John Webber / Professional life
caption_attribution_description: English: Citrus fruits More than 70 percent of all citrus fruits grown in the United States are varieties developed by the ARS citrus breeding program. In Florida, the ARS has developped citrus varieties that are higher yielding with increased disease resistance, better color, and longer shelf life. A major success story is Ambersweet, a cold-hardy citrus that's been approved for use in orange juice products. Because it withstands Florida's occasional cold snaps that can ruin most citrus, Ambersweet is being widely planted in the Sunshine State. It took 20 years of patient breeding to develop it, but the payoff is huge. If there's usually a grapefruit in your shopping cart, you may already have met up with a favorite ARS-created variety. It's a red-fleshed, thin-skinned, seedless grapefruit that was developed and released in 1987. Since then, over 4 million Flame nursery trees have been propagated in Florida. No other grapefruit variety has ever been so widely accepted and planted. Orange sections can now be prepared by a patented ARS process that uses commercially available food-grade enzymes. The process also removes the bitter white portion of grapefruit peel, eliminating hand-peeling and allowing more precise portion control. And the prepeeled fruit is ideal for school lunch programs and restaurants. Keeping oranges fresh is another citrus-oriented task we've taken on. Oranges that have been covered with our specially designed coating will stay fresh for up to 3 weeks at room temperature. In that time, fruit treated with the usual grocer's coatings will look shrunken and discolored. Français&#160;: Agrumes Plus de 70% des agrumes produits aux États-Unis proviennent de variétés développées par l'Agricultural Research Service, dépendant de l'USDA. Ces variétés, présentent un meilleur rendement, une meilleure résistance aux maladies, et produisent des fruits qui se conservent plus longtemps. L'un des succès est Ambersweet, un citrus utilisé pour faire des jus d'orange, mais dont la resistance au froid lui permet de survivre aux gelées qui frappent la Floride certains hivers. Cette variété est le résultat de 20 années de sélection. Un autre exemple est la variété de pamplemousse Flame, qui produit des fruits à chair rose, sans pépins, et à la peau fine. Cette variété est la plus plantée en floride de tous les temps. L'ARS développe aussi des procédés améliorant la qualité des agrumes de Floride, comme un traitement enzymatique qui permet de produire de grandes quantités de quartiers d'orange ou de pamplemousse, pour les cantines, par exemple; ou encore un revettement qui permet de prolonger la durée de conservation des fruits à l'étalage.
context_page_description: Herbert John Webber was an American plant physiologist, professor emeritus of sub-tropical horticulture, first director of the University of California Citrus Experiment Station, and the third curator of the University of California Citrus Variety Collection. Webber was the author of several publications on horticulture, member of numerous professional horticultural and agricultural associations.
context_section_description: Beginning in 1892, Webber worked for the United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Plant Industry in Florida where he investigated orange diseases and from 1889 to 1907 had charge of the department's plant-breeding investigations. In 1898 Webber represented the USDA in London at the International Conference on Hybidization.
  In 1907 Webber, then-considered the "most notable plant breeder and botanist in the USDA," was hired by Liberty Hyde Bailey, dean of Cornell University's New York State College of Agriculture, to serve as professor of experimental plant biology director of the school’s Department of Plant Breeding. Bailey often left Webber in charge of the college while Bailey participated in conferences away from Ithaca before appointing Webber as acting dean in 1910. While at Cornell Webber's stressed biological research with particular focus on both genetics and breeding. He was a partner in the development of several cultivars including Cornell 1777 Timothy grass, Honor Winter Wheat, Cornell Welcome Spring Oats, Weber's Early Dent O.P. Corn, Cornell 11 and 12 Corn,  In 1912 Webber went to the University of California to be director of the Citrus Experiment Station, dean of the Graduate School of Tropical Agriculture, and professor of plant breeding. Webber was one of the advocates in 1913 of keeping the station in Riverside rather than re-locating the facility to the San Fernando Valley. Together with Walter Tennyson Swingle he originated citranges, a hardy citrus fruit, by hybridization. In 1915 Webber joined the California Avocado Society, serving as director twice and president once. During 1920 Webber took a sabbatical from University of California to serve as general manager of South Carolina-based Coker Pedigreed Seed Company only to return to the Citrus Experimentation Station the following year. He retired as director of the Experimentation Station in 1929 and retired from teaching in 1936. In 1939, he and Leon Dexter Batchelor discovered an orange cultivar, Olinda Valencia, in Southern California. Webber was a founding member of the Los Angeles Farm Bureau.
   Webber had been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Botanical Society, the American Society of Naturalists, the Society of Horticultural Science, the American Genetic Association, and the Ecological Society of America, as well as academic societies Sigma Xi, Alpha Zeta, and Kappa Delta Rho.
caption: Some sliced citrus fruit.
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