Johan Gerard ten Houten

J. G. ten Houten (17 April 1911, in Winterswijk[1] – 15 May 1993, in Wageningen) was a Dutch plant pathologist known for founding and leading several important bodies in that subject in the Netherlands.

He then began a doctoral program at UU under Johanna Westerdijk, which he completed in 1939 with a dissertation titled Seed Plant Diseases of Conifers.

At NV Javo he was involved mostly with pest and disease control in Roselle grown as a fiber crop on Java, Indonesia.

Years later, in 1960, the Tunisian government recognized his contributions to roselle culture by inviting him to provide advice on the experimental introduction of this crop.

[3] In 1942, during World War II, ten Houten was separated from his family and imprisoned by the Japanese army in the Molucca islands, Indonesia to build airstrips from coral.

RAF Medical Officer Richard Philps wrote in his 1996 memoir Prisoner Doctor: "The men who survived Haruku and subsequent camps have reason to be extremely grateful to Leslie Audus.... During our first critical time at Haruku, with deaths from beriberi mounting and blindness from Vitamin B deficiency on the increase, he, at first single-handedly, and later with a Dutch botanist, Dr. (now Professor) JG ten Houten, devised a method of producing yeast, an abundant source of Vitamin B.".

[5] Soon thereafter ten Houten created the Instituut voor Plantenziektenkundig Onderzoek (IPO) (Research Institute for Plant Protection) in Wageningen[1][5] and on September 1, 1949 the board appointed him as its director.