Ted Henzell graduated with a B.Agr.Sc. from the University of Queensland in 1952. In the same year he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and undertook research work at the Department of Agriculture, Oxford University. This culminated in the award of the degree of D.Phil. in 1955.

Before joining CSIRO in 1956 he gained extensive farming experience in the Roma district of Queensland. Of Henzell’s wide spheres of interest in the Division have included agronomy, physiology, soil fertility, plant nutrition, biochemistry and advanced mathematical techniques.

Dr Henzell was a long-serving CSIRO officer, having joined he Division of Plant Industry n Brisbane in 1956, where he worked on nitrogen fertiliser responses of tropical pastures.

In 1959 the Brisbane group of Plant Industry became the Division of Tropical Pastures which undertook pasture research for the beef cattle industry of northern Australia. In 1970 he was made assistant Chief of that Division, and in 1977 was made Chief of the Division of Tropical Crops and Pastures.

In 1985-86 he was acting Director of the Institute of Biological Resources, based in Canberra.

He was recognised both in Australia and overseas as an authority on plant and soil aspects of the nitrogen cycle.