In 1925, Nikolai Vavilov led Russian plant hunters on the first attempt to “cover the globe” in search of wild plants and primitive cultivators. He developed several important theories — one of which is the centres of origin for cultivated crop plants — that have been guiding principles for plant breeding and plant genetic resource conservation around the world.

For his scientific curiosity, he was later thrown in prison, dying there of malnutrition in 1943.