The Russian botanist and geneticist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov (1887-1943) is noted for his theory on the origin of cultivated plants and his law of the homologous series of inherited variation.

Nikolai Vavilov was born on Nov. 25, 1887, probably in Moscow, into a wealthy merchant family. Having decided to specialize in agriculture and biology, he entered the Agricultural Academy at Petrovsko-Razumovskoe. In 1913 and 1914 he continued his education at the School of Agriculture, Cambridge University, studying under Sir Rowland Biffen, and at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, working with William Bateson, a pioneer geneticist. Vavilov first established his scientific reputation by publishing papers on the immunity of cereals to fungus diseases, explaining immunity in terms of Mendelian factors, systematics, and plant physiology.

Upon returning to the former Soviet Union, Vavilov began to devote his attention to the origin of cultivated plants. Between 1916 and 1933 he traveled in Iran, Afghanistan, the Mediterranean area...