Charles Allen Black

Charles Allen Black was an American soil scientist, born 22 January 1916 in Lone Tree, Iowa, and died 6 July 2002, who spent four decades at Iowa State College, rising from instructor in 1939 to professor in 1949 and holding the Charles F. Curtiss Professorship in Agriculture from 1967 until his retirement from full-time teaching in 1980, followed by adjunct service until 1985. He held a bachelor's degree in chemistry and soil science from Colorado State University, a master's degree from Iowa State College, and a doctorate in soil fertility also from Iowa State, completed in 1942 before wartime service in the United States Navy Reserve. His research centered on soil phosphorus, fertility and chemistry, and he wrote the influential textbook Soil-Plant Relationships in 1957 and edited several volumes on soil analysis methods still used as agricultural science references. He served as president of the Soil Science Society of America in 1962 and of the American Society of Agronomy in 1971, and in 1972 he founded and led the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, an organization built to deliver evidence-based agricultural information to policymakers and the United States Congress.