Harold B. Tukey was a world-renowned horticulturalist and former head of the Michigan State University Department of Horticulture from 1945 to 1963. Tukey’s research career started in 1920 as an assistant horticulturist with the New York Experiment Station in Geneva, New York. Tukey specialized in plant growth regulators and the use of radioisotopes, developed new herbicides, and discovered the uptake of nutrients by plants through their leaves and roots during studies of fall-out products from nuclear detonations. Also, he was one of the first scientists to use plants as test agents in cancer research and the inventor of the plant embryo culture technique. His horticultural expertise was routinely sought by national and international organizations.

A Native of Berwyn, Illinois, Tukey received his B.A. in 1918 and M.A. in 1920 from the University of Illinois. He would go on to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1932. Before joining Michigan State as a faculty member, Tukey was a professor of Pomology and chief in research for Cornell University. He also worked on the faculty committee on athletics at MSU and was elected MSU’s Big Ten faculty athletic representative in 1957. Tukey died in November 1971 in Boca Raton, Florida.