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Lorne Doud, one of the founding members of the International Dwarf Fruit Tree Association, died on August 1 at the age of 92 in Wabash, Indiana.
Doud graduated from the horticulture department at Purdue University, Indiana, in 1937. He and his wife, Betty, owned Doud Orchards in Miami County near Roann, Indiana. He was one of the first nurserymen in the country, beginning in 1940, to produce apple trees on the East Malling dwarfing rootstocks.
He served on the Indiana Horticultural Society Executive Committee from 1939 to 1953 and received the society's Distinguished Service Award in 1977. In the late 1950s, he helped found the Midwest Dwarf Fruit Tree Association, which is now known as the International Fruit Tree Association. He was a board member from 1958 to 1976 and president in 1964–65.
He and his wife traveled to Europe several times to study European fruit growing and dwarfing systems. The couple received two Hoosier Homestead awards for having two farms in the same family for over 100 years. His wife died in 2002.
Family members say Doud was passionate about fruit growing, even in his later years, and his children share that passion. His sons, Steven and David, are fruit growers in Indiana, and his daughter, Diane, is pomology research and extension specialist at Ohio State University.
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