Bazille Gaston

The French stockbroker Gaston Bazille (1819-1894) from Montpellier was also the owner of large vineyards. At the local university he met Jules Emile Planchon (1823-1888), a professor of botany. The two of them, together with the horticulturist Félix Sahut, were commissioned in 1868 to investigate the cause of the mysterious vine death. The group began their investigations at the Château de Lagoy vineyard near St. Rémy. Within just two days, they succeeded in identifying phylloxera as the cause. Planchon aptly named it Phylloxera vastatrix, which means "devastating louse". At that time, however, it was still completely unclear that the pest had been introduced from North America in the last 10 to 15 years with plant material contaminated with it.

At a congress in Beaune in 1869/1870, Bazille was supposedly the first to propose (but others are also credited with this) grafting European scions onto American rootstocks, without being able to be sure of the resistance of the American vines at that time. His contribution, however, went unheard, because when it became clear that phylloxera had come to Europe with American wild grapevines, the French government, in a panic reaction, forbade the introduction of further grapevines. Of course, this was of no use, because the pest had already arrived. Grafting as a solution to the problem was only recognised much later. See the whole story under phylloxera.

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Bazille Gaston

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