Norman C. Deno

Norman C. Deno (February 15, 1921 – September 22, 2017) was an American chemist and plant scientist. He was a professor of Chemistry at Penn State University and is known as one of the foremost researchers in seed germination theory. He researched the biochemical reactions that underlie the germination of all seeds and self-published a number of books that combined his scientific results. A final volume titled "Seed Storage Theory and Practice" was never written. He published 150 papers in Chemistry and 20 papers in horticulture. Over the course of his career, Deno performed germination research on plant species from 150 families, 800 genera, and 2500 species.
The second edition of his first book was published in 1993 and listed germination rules for over 2,500 individual species of plants. These covered 605 different genera of plants. The first supplement to the book was published in 1996 and added 1,080 further species.
Career.
Education.
Deno earned a Bachelors of Science degree from the University of Illinois in 1942. He earned a Masters of Science degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1946 and 1948.
Research.
During his time as a chemist, Deno made a major discovery on the operation of oil refineries and how to increase their efficiency, which earned him a large amount of money to focus on other research.
Later in his life, Deno moved from his direct chemistry work and decided to instead focus on horticulture and the chemical processes involved in the seed germination process. He determined that around 95% of plants relied upon chemical methods to delay germination and understanding how these work allowed for reversing them. A focus of his research was on the plant hormone gibberellic acid and how it increased germination rates, usually after being produced by microorganisms in a symbiotic relationship with their host plant. He disliked the methods of scarification, especially since he preferred the term "puncturing", and worked on his own physical methods of inducing germination.
Deno argued that the term "drainage" in regards to watering of plants is fundamentally wrong, as it does not matter the amount of flowing level of water over the roots, but the amount of contained oxygen in them and the capability of the plant at that growth stage to uptake the oxygen into the plant body. Therefore, he suggested all usage of the term drainage should be replaced with aeration for accuracy. Additionally, from his understanding of chemical responses boosting germination, he suggested that the idea of seed dormancy is inaccurate, as there is no form of hibernation going on. The seeds are still active and so he prefers the term "conditioning" in that the seeds are waiting for chemical signals to show that the outside conditions are right so their activity can proceed beyond the seed coat. These ideas and methodologies developed by Deno were also discussed and reproduced by Ken Druze for his book "Making More Plants: The Science, Art and Joy of Propagation".
A large amount of his research proved useful for gardeners and those wanting to successfully germinate specific species of plants outside of a lab setting. His contributions to the "North American Rock Garden Society" helped promote this and his low-tech methodology for accomplishing germination was referred to as "The Deno Method". This involved replicating the lab setting of blotting paper for sowing seeds and the use of germination chambers by instead using heavy-duty paper towels and plastic sandwich bags to imitate the enclosed chamber environment. Additionally, Deno stressed that sterilized soil had to be used in order to prevent encroachment of pathogenic fungi and his method recommended using boiling water strained through the soil several times in order to ensure no pathogens survived. Multiple seed companies contacted him over the years to see if he could attempt to find germination techniques for specific plant species they wanted to sell. Thompson & Morgan also incorporated his methods into their purchaser instructions for customers.
Books.
Copies of Deno's works are hosted in the United States National Agricultural Library archive. Original physical copies were previously sold by Deno for $20 through the mail.
Accolades and awards.
Deno received an Award of Merit in 1978 from the "North American Rock Garden Society", along with a Carleton R. Worth Award in 1990.