b'Wheat breeder Alireza Navabi taught multiple undergraduate and graduate courses as well as advising 12 graduate students. He sat on over 25 graduate advisory committees. PLANTTHE PLANT BREEDINGcommunity at the University of Guelph is remembering an influential mentor and researcher as someone who cared deeply about people and never lost sight of the humanity involved in taking a proper approach to research. BREEDER,Alireza (Ali) Navabioriginally from Iran where he did his undergraduate studieswas a wheat breeder and professor in the universitys Department of Plant Agriculture. He passed away earlier this year after a battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 53. MENTOR,A loving husband and devoted father of two boys, he first joined the department in 2008 as an adjunct profes-sor and since 2014 held the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) Professorship in Wheat Breeding.Among his many accomplishments was his build-FRIEND ing of the wheat breeding program at the University of Guelph and developing its first winter wheat variety OAC Galaxy, soon to be released.A number of other wheat lines in the pipeline from his program are reaching the final stages of testing. He also developed a speed breeding method that can produce 3.2 generations per year.Students and faculty at the University ofThats extremely fast. The method was developed Guelph say Ali Navabi will be remembered fororiginally in Australia but he used his resourcefulness to adopt and adapt it for the University of Guelph, says his innovative approach to research and careNavabis colleague and friend Istvan Rajcan, a plant breeder at the university.for his students wellbeing.Marc Zienkiewicz He built a strong and dynamic multifaceted breeding program in a very short time. He obtained germplasm from various sources and started doing breeding right away when he started as a faculty member. He had a multitude of projects funded from many sources, includ-ing the seed industry. He was known as an amazing 30GERMINATION.CA NOVEMBER 2019'