It was this meticulous work, showing the absence of phenotypic diversity between specific pathogens in this genus, that led to the development of pathovar nomenclature, applied internationally to plant pathogenic bacteria today.
Subsequently, he clarified the relationships within the major bacterial groups represented by Erwinia and Corynebacterium.
Dye worked on several committees connected with bacterial taxonomy, most notably the International Committee on the Systematics of Bacteria, participating in the complete revision of bacterial names contained in the Approved Lists of Names of Bacteria, and the Committee on Taxonomy of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria of the International Society for Plant Pathology, which developed the International Standards for Naming Pathovars.
From the late 1960s, as head of an expanding Bacteriology Section in Plant Diseases Division of DSIR, he maintained a day-to-day interest in wide-ranging studies of his staff.
He retired in December 1983, and was made an Honorary Member of the New Zealand Microbiological Society the following year.