death_date death_place birth_place nationality birth_date known_for image article_title name occupation
01 may 1990 little valley , nevada utrecht dutch may 18 , 1903 cholodny-went model frits warmolt went.jpg frits warmolt went
 frits warmolt went biologist
frits warmolt went

`` for his father , also a botanist , see frits went . ''
frits warmolt went -lrb- may 18 , 1903 -- may 1 , 1990 -rrb- was a dutch biologist whose 1928 experiment demonstrated the existence of auxin in plants .
went 's father was the prominent dutch botanist f.a.f.c. went .
after graduating from the university of utrecht , holland in 1927 with a dissertation on the effects of the plant hormone auxin , went then worked as a plant pathologist in the research labs of the royal botanical garden in buitenzorg , dutch east indies -lrb- now bogor , indonesia -rrb- from 1927 to 1933 .
he then took a position at caltech in pasadena , california , first researching plant hormones .
his interest gradually shifted to environmental influences on plant growth .
at caltech he was among the first to demonstrate the importance of hormones in plant growth and development .
he played an important role in the development of synthetic plant hormones , which then became the basis of much of the agricultural chemical industry .
went is known for the cholodny-went model , named after went and the soviet scientist n. cholodny .
they proposed it in 1937 , after coming independently to the same conclusions .
this is an early model describing the phototropic and gravitropic properties of emerging shoots of monocotyledons .
it proposes that auxin , a plant growth hormone , is synthesized in the coleoptile tip , which senses light or gravity and will send the auxin down the appropriate side of the shoot .
this causes asymmetric growth of one side of the plant .
as a result , the plant shoot will begin to bend toward a light source or toward the surface .
funded by generous donors , went constructed a series of greenhouses at caltech in which he could vary light conditions , humidity , temperature , air quality and other variables .
in 1949 this led to him to construct a large new complex of climate-controlled rooms called the earhart plant research laboratory , also known as the `` phytotron '' .
here he produced foundational research of the effects of air pollution on plant growth .
in 1958 went was appointed director of the missouri botanical garden and professor of botany at washington university in st louis , at a point where he had become a world recognized authority on plant growth .
he moved from pasadena to st. louis with his wife catharina and their two children , hans and anneka .
after the opening of the climatron , the world 's first geodesic dome greenhouse , went 's vision of a renewed missouri botanical garden eventually came into conflict with that of its board of trustees , and he resigned as director in 1963 .
after two years as simply professor of botany at washington university , in 1965 he then became director of the desert research institute at the university of nevada-reno , where he continued his research on desert plants for the remainder of his career , and on occasion lectured in the department of biology , university of nevada-reno .
he remained active in many fields of botany until his death in 1990 .
