The importance of Thung’s research was once again emphasised in a 2014 study conducted by Professor J.C. Zadoks on Thung’s investigations into the lanas disease, in the 1930s in Klaten. Zadoks worked as a phytopathologist at the predecessors of Wageningen University & Research from 1961 to 1994.

In his publication, Black shank of tobacco in the former Dutch East Indies, caused by Phytophthora nicotianae, Zadoks argued that Thung produced an entirely novel insight when he characterised the lanas disease, known as black shank in America, which caused a lot of damage to tobacco crops, as an epidemic disease. Moreover, according to Zadoks, Thung authored innovative studies in the field of plant disease epidemiology that recommended three different control methods: ecological, chemical, and genetic, which was completely new at the time.