Gretna Margaret Weste AM (5 September 1917 – 30 August 2006) was a leading scientist noted for her work in plant pathology and mycology, specifically with Phytophthora cinnamomi.
The family lived at 24 the Ridge, Eastriggs during World War One and a brother Tom was also born during this time.
[4][5] Weste was a foundation member of the Australian Conservation Foundation and an active member of numerous community natural history associations, including the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, the Victorian National Parks Association, the Environmental Studies Association of Victoria, the Friends of Warrandyte State Park and the 100 Acres Reserve in Park Orchards, the Montrose Environment Group, the Ringwood Field Naturalists Club, and the Maroondah branch of the Society for Growing Australian Plants (now the Australian Native Plants Society).
For her Masters of Science research, she studied wood anatomy—which proved useful in preserving the huge quantities of dead standing Mountain Ash timber which resulted as a consequence of the Black Friday bushfires of 1939.
[2] Her Doctor of Philosophy degree was in agricultural plant pathology, on the root-rotting pathogen of wheat Gaeumannomyces graminis.