Lena Smithers Hughes
In the 1930s, Lena Smithers Hughes and her husband, U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Chemist Dr. A. E. Hughes saw a need for improving two outstanding citrus cultivars and planted a block of Nucellar Parson Brown and Nucellar Valencia seedlings. Although Dr. Hughes died in 1944, Lena Smithers Hughes maintained the seedlings. In the 1982-83 citrus season, the Hughes Nucellar Valencia bud line accounted for 60 percent of all Valencias propagated in Florida. In today’s highly scientific agricultural industry, the chances are slim that a citrus grower such as Hughes could create such a new variety of strains of budwood outside of an organized research facility.