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Charles Anthony Fleschner, Biological
Control: Riverside
1911-1993 Charley was born in Little Rock,
Arkansas, where he attended Little Rock High School. In 1928, he drove to
southern California with an uncle and cousin "to look the place
over." Charley, sans high school diploma, decided to stay and began
working for Stationers Corp., Los Angeles. In 1930 he married Antoinette
(Annette) Marsman, who earlier had given him a book on dragonflies because of
his keen interest in nature study and insects in particular. Their two sons,
Anthony and Michael, were born in 1939 and 1943, respectively. Through self-education, and the
encouragement of his wife, Charley successfully passed entrance examinations
and began a college curriculum at Glendale Junior College in 1938, at age 27.
There he was befriended and strongly influenced by a well-known entomologist,
W. Dwight Pierce, whose enthusiasm for the subject and genuine interest in
budding entomologists were widely recognized. Charley attended UCLA in 1939
and 1940. He later enrolled at UCB, where he was awarded the B.S. degree in
1943. Charley worked in a shipyard in the San Francisco Bay and Oakland area
for a period during World War II. He returned to southern California in 1946
and began his dissertation research at the Citrus Experiment Station with
Professors H. S. Smith and S. E. Flanders, Department of Biological Control.
Charley was awarded the Ph.D. degree at UCB in February 1948. Fleschner's career at the Riverside
campus spanned twenty-four years, 1948 to 1972, during which he authored or
co-authored over eighty papers. His early research dealt mainly with population
ecology of plant-feeding mites. He was a firm believer in making detailed
hands-on observations of pest mites and their natural enemies in the field,
especially in the absence of pesticides. Perhaps his major creative
contribution to the population-ecology literature is reflected in the title,
"The Role of Edaphic [soil and water] Factors in the Population Ecology
of Panonychus citri [citrus red mite]." His research also
demonstrated the detrimental effect of dust on the activity of beneficial insects
and mites on the leaves and fruits of citrus and avocados. He and Annette
made several foreign collecting trips to search for new natural enemies. This
use of exotic predators was a pioneering approach to the control of spider
mites. His enthusiastically-given invited lectures at universities in Mexico,
India, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Argentina, Peru, and elsewhere brought many
student applicants to UC to study biological control of pest organisms. His
fluency in Spanish greatly added to the success of trips to Spanish-speaking
countries. Charley's interest in the use of
natural enemies to control pests was broad. During the early years of his
research career he worked mainly with primary pests such as citrus red mite
and avocado brown mite and mite pests of greenhouse culture. A survey in 1965
of the Anthocoridae of the Pacific Slope greatly advanced and clarified the
status of these important predaceous insects. He was among the first to
document the presence in southern California of the spider mite, Tetranychus
evansi, a highly destructive pest of solanaceous plants. Other projects
he engaged in included the effect of air pollutants and their residues on
entomophagous insects and mites, and the use of insects to control puncture
vine on the mainland and prickly pear cactus on Santa Cruz Island. While chair of the Universitywide
Department of Biological Control from 1959 to 1964, Fleschner promoter the
concept and application of the biological control method through articles and
lectures to outside audiences as well as continuing to conduct formal courses
at UCR. Two films he directed are still used at UC and other teaching
institutions. Among his major administrative
contributions was the constructing of favorable relationships with the
federal and state departments of agriculture and the agricultural industry. In recognition of his scientific
contributions on the population ecology of plant-feeding mites, he was
invited in 1963 to chair the section of Agricultural and Stored Products
Acarology of The First International Congress of Acarology, held at Fort
Collins, Colorado. Fleschner was a member of the
California Forest Pest Control Action Council and of the Southern California
Forest Pest Committee. In 1965 he was appointed to the USDA Plant Science and
Entomology Research Advisory Committee by Secretary of Agriculture Orville
Freemen. It was his responsibility as a committee member to review the
research program of the United States Department of Agriculture in his field
of expertise. Following Charley's retirement in 1972,
the Fleschners spent time at their ranch near Fossil, Oregon, and in Davis,
California, where their daughter-in-law, Patti, was completing an M.A. degree
at UCD. After the death of his wife in 1974, Fleschner moved to Trinidad, California,
in 1977 to be near their two sons and their families. In 1992 he married
Adrian Love of Trinidad. Charley subsequently entered
wholeheartedly into community service through the Trinidad Lions Club (he was
a charter member) and the Trinidad Museum Society. Leading nature walks that
were well attended by youngsters and their parents was a source of great
satisfaction. Being an entomologist, he built a fine, locally representative
collection of insects for the museum. His devotion to the museum and the
community were deeply appreciated; the museum now bears his name. Charles Fleschner is survived by his
wife, Adrian; by his sons, Charles, of Fortuna, and David, of Trinidad, and
four grandchildren. A brother, Lewis, resides in Arkansas. Albert M. Boyce |