Madam,

I am a little disappointed that an ex-colleague of mine, Arthur Davies, considers my article on ‘The 100 Year anniversary of plant breeding in Aberystwyth’ to be very one-sided (Letter in Cambrian News 22 August). He missed the clue in the title of the article and in the name ‘Welsh Plant Breeding Station’ that I was asked specifically to write about plant breeding in Aberystwyth and not about the WPBS.

In fact, however, the full article, which has recently been published on the Aberystwyth University website, does acknowledge the activities associated with breeding but was twice as long as the article published in the Cambrian News of 25 July. One therefore had to focus very sharply on plant breeding and the major challenge was what to leave out. Unfortunately therefore I had to leave out the contributions of Gwilym Evans in establishing a thriving home seeds growing industry for which he was honoured with an OBE; the Cahn Hill Improvement Scheme led by Moses Griffiths which showed how to improve the hill pastures of Wales and collaborations of Stapledon with William Davies, the Head of Grassland Agronomy between 1933 and 1940 and author of The Grass Crop and with Fagan, Head of Agricultural Chemistry who quantified the nutritional value of grass leaves compared to stems.

In the article, I also focused on the awards that teams were awarded rather than the recognition of individual scientists such as the prestigious elevation to Fellow of the Royal Society (Professor John Cooper), the conferring of the title of Doctor of Science and special promotions. As a plant breeder, I would not feel fully qualified to review 100 years of grassland agronomy, grass conservation or animal nutrition but I am sure an article by Arthur would be of high interest.

Yours etc, John Valentine, Lampeter.

Have your say on the local issues affecting you - email [email protected] or join in the conversation on our Facebook page