Catalogue description Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Plant Pathology Laboratory: Plant Pathology Dept.

An Institute for Plant Pathology was founded in 1914 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. In 1918 this institute was reorganised; its administrative and advisory functions were transferred to the Board of Agriculture's newly formed Plant Pathology Laboratory and its research functions to Rothamsted Experimental Station. The laboratory remained at Kew until 1920, when it moved to a converted private house in Milton Road, Harpenden; in 1960 it moved again to newly constructed buildings at Hatching Green, Harpenden, which it now occupies. One of the laboratory's main functions is to provide the scientific basis for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's various policies relating to pests and diseases of plants and to methods of their control, expecially in relation to regulatory questions of international and domestic plant quarantine. The laboratory acts as a clearing house for information, gathering it from various sources, collating and interpreting it, and making it available to administrative divisions of the Ministry and others as a basis for action. Liaison is maintained with the National Agricultural Advisory Service, in particular with its entomologists and plant pathologists. The laboratory is organised in three departments, Entomology, Plant Pathology and Chemistry.