Awards

Rudolf Heitefuß, for many years Director of the Institute of Plant Pathology and Plant Protection at the University of Göttingen, took over its management when he was appointed Full Professor of Plant Pathology and Plant Protection in 1972 and worked at this site until his retirement in spring 1994. With his early scientific work, he was instrumental in the establishment of physiological phytopathology, which led to a completely new understanding of host-pathogen relationships and is now being continued worldwide with great intensity at the molecular level. Soon, his interest turned to applied questions of plant protection. His main focus here was on the further development of integrated pest management, with a particular focus on improving targeted weed control based on damage thresholds. With this work, Rudolf Heitefuß gave extremely valuable impetus to the practice of plant protection that continues to have an impact today. Above all, however, by combining basic research and applied research, he embodied a scientific approach in plant protection that is increasingly being lost due to disciplinary fragmentation.

Many of the issues dealt with in his numerous projects, publications and lectures, such as the environmental compatibility of plant protection products, reduction options in chemical plant protection or maintaining productivity while at the same time protecting the ecosystem, are extremely topical today. Rudolf Heitefuß has left behind a wealth of knowledge that is still worth drawing on today. Rudolf Heitefuß incorporated the scientific knowledge he gained in a patient, strictly systematic manner into his work on numerous scientific and technical committees, above all at the DFG and the DLG, as a much sought-after expert, as well as through his many contributions at national and international conferences. His contributions were always in great demand and had a lasting influence on colleagues and subsequent generations in scientific and practical plant protection.

Rudolf Heitefuß was born in Braunschweig on November 8, 1928, the second of six children of a deaf-mute teacher. He always spoke very positively about his childhood in Braunschweig, even though it was certainly not without hardship. He attended the Martino-Katharineum, the secondary school for boys in Braunschweig, but was drafted early in 1944 as an air force helper. After the end of the war, he first completed an agricultural apprenticeship on a farm in the district of Helmstedt and then returned to his school in Braunschweig to take his school-leaving examination in 1950. After that, he was all set for agriculture. After a short traineeship at the Agricultural Research Institute in Braunschweig-Völkenrode, he began studying agriculture in Göttingen in 1951, which he completed in 1954 with a degree in agriculture. His scientific interest in agriculture, especially plant protection, was now also awakened and he immediately followed this up with a doctorate, which he completed in 1957 with a dissertation on the physiological pathology of downy mildew on rapeseed under Prof. Fuchs in Göttingen.

Following a good instinct, Rudolf Heitefuß moved to the highly renowned Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, USA, immediately after completing his doctorate, where he was able to deepen his interest in physiological and biochemical aspects of plant-pathogen interaction in the laboratory of J.C. Walker and M.A. Stahmann from 1957 to 1959. An important later outcome of this stay is not only the long lasting friendship with Paul H. Williams, but above all the voluminous standard work “Physiological Plant Pathology”, published together with him in 1976.

Back in Göttingen, he began as a research assistant with studies on the temperature control of wheat black rust, with which he habilitated in 1964. Prof. Fuchs gave him ample opportunity to teach and he developed new research interests. He began investigating the side effects of herbicides on pathogenic fungi, in particular foot rot pathogens in cereals. This was also the bridge to a completely new field of interest, weed control, to which he devoted himself intensively in a variety of ways in the following years.

At the same time, he climbed the academic ladder at lightning speed, becoming senior assistant in 1964, associate professor in 1971 and full professor of plant pathology and plant protection and director of the institute of the same name at the University of Göttingen in 1972. In addition to his teaching and research activities, he held numerous offices in the following years and was involved in various important committees. He was a DFG expert reviewer for the subject of phytomedicine, 1st Chairman of the German Phytomedical Society (1975-1981) and later its Honorary Chairman, Chairman of the DLG Committee for Plant Protection (1983-1991), Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture (1974-1975), Chairman of the Senate Commission for the Assessment of Substances in Agriculture (1989-1994), Editor of the Phytopathological Journal (1979- 1999), to name just the most important offices. In addition to this extensive commitment outside the Institute, he supervised an immense number of diploma students, over 100 doctoral students and authored over 270 publications as well as several important textbooks.

Rudolf Heitefuß was valued early on by his colleagues in practical and scientific plant protection as an expert who combined the knowledge of a generalist with a wide range of detailed knowledge. With his even-tempered nature and his always well-founded arguments, he earned the respect of all sides, even in controversial debates. This resulted in a number of honors. In 1996, he was awarded the Otto Appel Memorial Medal for his successful work. He has also been awarded the Prof. Niklas Medal in Silver, the Max Eyth Medal in Silver and the Thaer-Thünen Medal in Silver. His life's work was quite rightly honored in 2006 with the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class.

But he was also fully committed to teaching. The postgraduate course in phytomedicine in Göttingen, which he founded in 1984 and which allowed students to specialize in plant protection in addition to their diploma, was groundbreaking. This course was continued from 2010 in the international Master's degree course in Crop Protection in Göttingen, which is still very successful today.

Andreas v. Tiedemann