John Bennet Lawes

John Bennet Lawes founded Rothamsted on his Hertfordshire estate and in 1843 began field experiments with the chemist Joseph Henry Gilbert, who worked beside him for nearly sixty years. The Broadbalk wheat experiment has been sown with the same fertiliser treatments almost every year since, and Lawes left money to keep it going. Its unbroken record, with stored soil and crop samples, still answers questions about soil, pollution and climate.