Dr. De Buys Scott
DeBuys Scott with the Small Grain Institute of the Agricultural Research Council of South Africa at Bethlehem, retired at the end of February 1998, after 36 years of devotion to research and teaching.
De Buys Scott spent most of his carreer doing research and teaching at universities. The last 15 years were spent at the Small Grain Institute, where he did applied research on soil borne diseases of wheat. His research was always aimed at finding solutions that would benefit the wheat farmer.
After terminating his ties with the Small Grain Institute, he is acting as a consultant for private companies specialising in the marketing of micro-nutrients for use in the wheat industry.
De Buys was born and raised in the Free State Province of South Africa. He received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Free State University, and in 1968, he completed a Ph.D. at University of Cape Town.
He started his career as a microbiologist at the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, where he contributed extensively towards a better understanding of mycotoxins. In 1970, he joined the teaching staff at the Free State University and subsequently continued his teaching career in 1973 at the University of Pretoria. During 1980, he joined the Department of Agriculture in Pretoria and moved to Bethlehem, where he became Assistant Director in 1983. In 1992, he became Specialist Scientist with the Agricultural Research Council. De Buys published more than 50 scientific articles, including invitational papers, and two text books on disorders and diseases of small grain cereals. The impact and quality of these can be evaluated by the fact that he was awarded a Citation Classic for one of his first papers.
Closer to home he also is known for the popular illustrated manual on diseases of small grains, Wheat Diseases in South Africa. This book is an extremely useful reference manual for researchers and extensional officers, and even farmers use it.
De Buys is maried to Emsie, and they have two children. Willem is a wheat farmer at Ficksburg, and Jean is married to a wheat farmer in the same regeon. De Buys and Emsie will continue to live in Bethlehem.