Donald d'Emmerez de Charmoy

He was the founder and first director of the Testing Station (renamed Test Center for Research and Training in 1973 (TCRT), or CERF in French) until his retirement in 1974. His international reputation allowed the CERF to exchange with other hybridization's stations of the world their best varieties.

He began at the age of 45 a breeding program of the cane in Reunion Island. Thanks to this researcher, "sugar agronomy of Reunion is raised to a high degree of perfection," according to Jean Defos du Rau, in his thesis in geography (1960).

He married Marie Antoinette Chauvet (1906–1937) on June 6, 1931.

He began his career by making a two-year internship in British India to study the hybridization of sugar. He was awarded the Imperial Service Order in the 1926 Birthday Honours, when he was the assistant director and entomologist at the Agricultural Department of Mauritius. He led the Centre d'Essai de Recherche et de Formation (CERF) from 1929 to 1974. Between these two dates, the average yields per hectare increased from two tonnes of sugar to more than five tons. It is now eight tons of sugar per hectare on average and can still improve.

Donald d'Emmerez de Charmoy ISO (June 28, 1906 – December 2, 1979) was a Mauritian entomologist and biologist.

Donald d'Emmerez was born on June 28, 1906 in British Mauritius, and died on December 2, 1979. He is the son of an eminent Mauritian naturalist, Paul Donald d'Emmerez Charmoy and his wife, née Marie-Louise Marguerite Motet de Torvilliers. He is the second child of the couple, who had given birth in 1899 to a daughter, Valerie Marie Antoinette d'Emmerez de Charmoy.