DAVID JENKINSON:DAVID JENKINSON, who has died aged 82, was an internationally respected soil scientist. His research changed much thinking in many topics connected with soil, agriculture and the environment.
In addition to his scientific interests, he had a deep love and knowledge of both the arts and nature. His joy in science, and insight into it, inspired all those who worked with him, from the youngest of students to the most famous and learned of professors. Friends and colleagues recognised in him great politeness, kindness and civility.
He was born in Los Angeles in 1928 after his family moved there from Ireland. He was the first child of his parents, Hugh and Isabel; their second child was Donald; and a third, Jim, was born in 1932 after they returned to Ireland, victims of the Wall Street crash.
They bought a farm in Armagh where he grew up. He attended the Royal School in Armagh from 1940 to 1946 and won a scholarship in experimental science at Trinity College Dublin. There, he obtained a first-class honours in experimental science followed by a doctorate in organic chemistry.
His soil science research began in 1955 at the University of Reading, moving to Rothamsted in 1957 until his retirement in 1988, but still being an inspiration there for more than 20 years.
In 1958, he married his wife Moira. They were fond of walking in the Dublin hills and were a gregarious couple; weekends often revolved around friends getting together for talking, arguing, discussing politics and laughing.
Jenkinson was quite left wing in his early adulthood and was some nine years older than his wife. She took issue with his admiration of communism. Despite this, they began going out when he was lecturing at Reading in Berkshire and she was working at University College, London.
Moira for a time worked and lived in Copenhagen and they corresponded. She found in his letters a gentle and thoughtful personality and a mind that was a mine of information. She succumbed eventually, helped by his mop of curly hair, his warm smile and lentil pie.
After marriage, children soon began to arrive – twin sons, Hugh and Philip; then daughter Maeve; and finally another son, Robert. Family holidays on Achill Island off Co Mayo in the VW camper van,fully packed and with two canoes on top, became a firm favourite.
David Jenkinson was a true pioneer in soil science research: around 1960 he was among the first to exploit radioactive carbon-14, to label plants and then follow their decomposition in soil.
A paper published in 1976, with David Powlson, on this was termed a citation classic by the Institute of Scientific Information because of its numerous citations. He then developed new microbial survival concepts, first in collaboration with David Powlson and then Phil Brookes.
During the 1970s he recognised the potential of computers to drive complex mathematical models. He initially achieved this with the late James Rainer, an expert on X-ray crystallography. They developed the Rothamsted Carbon Model, or Roth.
A paper in Nature in 1991 was the first quantitative assessment of “positive feedback” whereby carbon dioxide released from decomposition of organic matter in soil accelerates climate change.
During the 1980s he studied nitrogen cycling by determining nitrogen fertiliser efficiency of crops, using new isotope methods. This produced new ideas of the role of nitrogen fertiliser in increasing food production and in decreasing its environmental impacts.
Professional accolades followed. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1991. He received the Massey Ferguson National Agricultural Award in 1993 for work on nitrogen fertilisers and was elected an honorary member of the Soil Science Society of America (1995) and the British Society of Soil Science (2007).
David Jenkinson was a humanist and a member of the British Humanist Association. His funeral in March was conducted accordingly.
As the Humanist minister Ros Curtis put it at his funeral: “Humanists believe that, because there is no life but this, and no-one to look after us but ourselves, we should seek to live life fully and well, for our own benefit and that of others. We should also treat others with the same compassion, tolerance and respect we ourselves hope to receive; following the golden rule – do as you would be done by. Humanists have a very positive belief in the power and potential of humanity and that it is entirely possible to live a good life without religion.”
His early love of the natural world was recalled in the story involving “the box of crabs which escaped into the train carriage on the way home from a trip to the seaside, and crawled all over the seats collecting fluff as they went”.
After retiring he was appointed a Laws Trust Senior Fellow at Rothamsted, and visiting professor at the University of Reading.
David Jenkinson is survived by Moira and by Hugh, Philip, Maeve and Robert and by grandchildren.
David Jenkinson: born February 25th, 1928; died February 16th, 2011