Vavilov was born into a family of merchants at Moscow on November 25th, 1887 and soon began a life-long love affair with cultivated plants. Even as early as his years as a student at the Moscow Commercial College, and later at the Moscow Agricultural Institute (now the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy), Vavilov’s aim was to increase the productivity of cultivated plants.

In pursuing his goals, Vavilov directed his work towards two related tasks - both of which he established very early in life. The first goal was the identification, collecting and study of cultivated plants and their wild relatives. The second was the preservation of plant diversity; which even during Vavilov’s time was dwindling due to the elimination of more primitive farming practises and the destruction of the natural habitat of wild plants.

After graduating from the Moscow Agricultural Institute in 1910, Vavilov set his sites on meeting his goals. In 1912, he wrote a ground-breaking paper entitled “Genetics and Agronomy”, which outlined a program for the application of genetic breeding for the improvement of cultivated plants.

Vavilov is recognized as the foremost plant geographer in history, a feat which eventually earned him the title of President of the National Geographic Society. Vavilov organized and took part in over 100 expeditions for the sake of collecting plants in their natural habitat.

The activities of Vavilov have been widely acknowledged, not only in Russia, but also worldwide, having received many honors from organizations around the globe.

Starting in the mid-1930’s, the development of genetic science in Russia was greatly damaged by the purges of Josef Stalin.

Vavilov became the main opponent of Trofim D. Lysenko, who did not recognize genetics as a serious science and who often brought political accusations against scientists who did not agree with him. As a result, Lysenko had many talented scientists imprisoned.

In August of 1940, Nikolai Vavilov was imprisoned and sentenced to death due to the accusations of Lysenko. After serving for one year in Saratov prison, Vavilov’s sentence was reduced to twenty years of imprisonment at Saratov.

On January 26th, 1943, Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov died as a result of starvation in prison and was buried in a common prison grave.

Despite Vavilov’s tragic end, his students and followers preserved his work and memory by continuing to collect his manuscripts, documents and photographs of plants. Since the mid-1950’s, hundreds of books and articles have been written devoted to his life and accomplishments have been published, while memorial displays have been erected at Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov and Poltava.

The significance of Vavilov’s work and theories have become especially important in this day and age. Not only have specialists in this field expressed concern over the loss of natural plant habitats and the loss of more traditional farming techniques, but even every day people worldwide have become concerned with the things which Vavilov himself was concerned with.

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was truly a man ahead of his time - a pioneer among organic gardeners and seed-savers whose words and ideas still have a place in the world.