Aaron Aaronsohn
| Aaron Aaronsohn | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 21 May 1876 |
| Died | 15 May 1919 |
| Fields | Botany |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Aarons. |
Not to be confused with Aaron A. Aaronson, a fictional character in the Simpsons episode Sideshow Bob Roberts.
Aaron Aaronsohn (Hebrew: אהרון אהרנסון) (21 May 1876 – 15 May 1919) was a Jewish agronomist, botanist, and Zionist activist, who was born in Romania and lived most of his life in the Land of Israel, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Aaronsohn was the discoverer of emmer (Triticum dicoccoides), believed to be "the mother of wheat."
Aaron Aaronsohn was born in Bacău, Romania, and brought to Palestine, then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, at the age of six, when his parents were among the founders of Zikhron Ya'akov, one of the pioneer Jewish agricultural settlements of the First Aliyah.
After studying agriculture in France, sponsored by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Aaron Aaronsohn botanically mapped Palestine and its surroundings and became a leading expert on the subject. On his 1906 field trip to Mount Hermon, while trekking around the Upper Galilee in the area of Rosh Pinna, he discovered Triticum dicoccoides, whom he considered to be the "mother of wheat", an important find for agronomists and historians of human civilization. Geneticists have proven that wild emmer is indeed an ancestor of most domesticated wheat strands cultivated on a large scale today with the exception of durum wheat, while einkorn, a different ancient species, is currently just a relict crop. This discovery made Aaronsohn world-famous and, on a trip to the United States, he was able to secure financial backing for a research station established in Atlit in 1909. Aaronsohn built up a large collection of geological and botanical samples there and established a library. Aaronsohn served as a scientific consultant to Djemal Pasha during a crop-destroying desert locust invasion in 1915. In March–October of that year, the locusts stripped the country of almost all vegetation. Aaronsohn and the team fighting the locust invasion was given permission to move around the area known as Southern Syria (including modern day Israel) and made detailed maps of the areas they surveyed. Aaronsohn also collected strategic information about Ottoman camps and troop deployment.
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