In 1928 the Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko published his works on the effects of cold on cereal seeds, and coined the term "яровизация" ("jarovization") to describe a chilling process he used to make the seeds of winter cereals behave like spring cereals ("Jarovoe" in Russian, originally from "jar" meaning fire or the god of spring). Lysenko himself translated the term into "vernalization" (from the Latin "vernum" meaning Spring). After Lysenko the term was used to explain the ability of flowering in some plants after a period of chilling due to physiological changes and external factors. The formal definition was given in 1960 by a French botanist P. Chouard, as "the acquisition or acceleration of the ability to flower by a chilling treatment".