page_title: Leslie Coleman
section_title: India
hierarchical_section_title: Leslie Coleman / India
caption_attribution_description: Grave of Mary MacDonald, wife of Leslie Coleman, Biligirirangan Hills, India
context_page_description: Leslie Charles Coleman was a Canadian entomologist, plant pathologist and virologist who worked as the first director of agriculture in Mysore State in southern India. He conducted pioneering research on the pests and diseases affecting agriculture in the region and was instrumental in establishing several agricultural research institutions including the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore and the Central Coffee Research Institute at Balehonnur. His major contributions to plant protection included measures to control a rot disease of coffee caused by Pellicularia koleroga known in southern India as koleroga. Coleman established an inexpensive control measure for another disease, also known as koleroga, a generic name for rot-causing diseases in Kannada, that caused complete destruction in areca plantations. Sprays of inexpensive Bordeaux mixture on the growing crowns helped control infection caused by what he described as Phytophthora arecae.
context_section_description: Coleman succeeded Adolf Lehmann, a Canadian chemist of German descent, who advised the State of Mysore on agriculture. Lehmann's appointment was the result of a committee headed by Dr J.A. Voelcker to improve agriculture in India. Coleman initially headed the Chemistry department of the Mysore Agricultural Department and began to study plant pests and diseases. He was appointed as the Director of Agriculture in 1913 and held the position until 1934. From January 1919 to July, he taught biology to Canadian army personnel returning from the First World War in a makeshift training centre in Ripon, Yorkshire. This six month course at the Khaki University was accepted by Canadian universities as equal to a full year of coursework.
  Coleman's research in Mysore included studies on coffee rust, Hemileia vastatrix, and a disease of areca caused by Phytophthora palmivora (then called P. arecae). He also studied a mycoplasma infection that affected sandal and caused sandal spike. Coleman mentored the Indian entomologist K. Kunhikannan and the mycologist M. J. Narasimhan who worked as his assistants. In 1921 and 1933 he introduced Agromyzid flies from Hawaii for the control of Lantana. Coleman also examined economic policies and was an advisor to many government bodies. In 1918, he spoke at the Mysore Economic Conference on the Japanese approach to consolidation of small farmer holdings to reduce wastage of land for boundaries noting however that such an idea would be difficult to implement in India due to Hindu laws of inheritance.
  
  He was also instrumental in establishing the Central Coffee Research Institute at Balehonnur in 1925 and the Mysore Sugar Factory at Mandya on 15 January 1934. Coleman also suggested experiments on X-ray induced mutation for breeding new sugarcane varieties based on his observations of similar attempts on Tobacco at the Klaten Experimental Station in Java. These mutation experiments were then conducted by V.K. Badami. He was also involved in the establishment of the Agricultural College at Hebbal in Bangalore (on 14 June 1946) which later became the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. Another innovation was the establishment of the Mysore Agricultural and Experimental Union in 1918, consisting of land owning cultivators interested in carrying out experiments and scientific investigations on new methods, conduct manure and crop trials just like the government experimental farms while also popularising new ideas among farmers. A field day was held once a year in November. The Union was based on a similar idea in Ontario and published a quarterly journal in English (Journal of the Mysore Agricultural Experimental Union now called the Mysore Journal of Agricultural Sciences) and a Kannada monthly.
  As a member of the board of agriculture in India, Coleman headed various committees and was responsible for the establishment of a statistical unit at the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute.
  A grasshopper genus, Colemania and another species Parahieroglyphus colemani were named after him by Ignacio Bolívar. Coleman made an extensive study of Colemania sphenarioides, a pest in some regions that affected millet crops. The scale insect Coccus colemani found on coffee was named after him by his assistant entomologist Kunhi Kannan in 1918. Coleman was interested in the role of natural parasites and predators for the control of pests. He was involved in measures to control Opuntia in Kolar district that included manual removal, conversion of Opuntia to green manure, and the use of cochineal insects in their control. He reared and studied many species of parasites. Telenomus colemani, Anastatus colemani, and Tetrastichus colemani are named after him. Coleman was the first to introduced legislative measures to control pests. He made it compulsory for planters to take measures to control coffee stem-borer.
caption: Grave marker for Mary Macdonald at Bellaji, Biligirirangan Hills
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