Raymond P. Oglesby, president of Oglesby Plant Laboratories, has contributed extensively to Florida’s agriculture in the area of tissue culture. He developed a disease-free banana plant now used extensively in Jamaica. He later used the expertise gained in working with bananas to apply tissue culture to avocadoes, pineapples, plantains and to foliage plants. A virus-free potato developed by Oglesby was used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a seed stock. His tissue culture laboratory was the first in Florida and served as the forerunner of the tissue culture system now proliferating into many other agricultural commodities. He is a charter member of the Florida Nurserymen and Growers Association and holds the longest tenure as chairman of the Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition Trade Show.