Jan Zadoks

His early research focused on wheat yellow stripe rust and other fungal plant diseases. His 1974 scale to record growth stages of cereals (the 'Zadoks scale') became the internationally recognized standard as used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). He developed dynamic simulation models of plant disease epidemics, and initiated the computerized pest and disease warning system EPIPRE for wheat. Later, he became involved in various studies of focus formation in plant disease, and in alternative agriculture. Once retired, he published on the history of plant pathology.

In 1969, Zadoks founded the European and Mediterranean Cereal Rust Foundation. He performed consultancy and evaluation missions for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), CGIAR (Consultative Group for International Agriculture) and for Dutch, French and Swiss governmental institutions with a focus on crop loss, resistance, integrated pest management (IPM) and education. For 14 years he was a member of the FAO Panel of Experts for Integrated Pest Control. He organised the XIII International Plant Protection Congress (IPPC) of the International Association for the Plant Protection Sciences at The Hague in 1995.

Zadoks studied biology at the University of Amsterdam and received his PhD. cum laude from the same university in 1961 for his thesis Yellow rust on wheat, studies in epidemiology and physiologic specialization.

In 1961 Zadoks joined the National Agricultural College, where he was appointed Professor of Ecological Plant Pathology in 1969. He served in various administrative roles, including Dean of the School of Agriculture, and President of the Biology Section (BION) of the Dutch Research Council (Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, NWO). He was a member of the Committee on Genetic Modification (COGEM) of the Netherlands ('GMO Release Committee'), chairing the Subcommittee on Plants for five years. He was a member of the Netherlands Pesticides Registration Board for 3 years.

Jan Carel Zadoks (born 6 February 1929) is a Dutch botanist and a professor emeritus of ecological plant pathology at Wageningen University & Research.