GRASSLANDS RESEARCH

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28792, 13 January 1959, Page 10

GRASSLANDS RESEARCH

Task Of Setting Up Centre

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON. January 12. The setting up of a centre for research into New Zealand's grassland and crop problems will be one of the main tasks of Dr. R. H. M. Langer, who arrived in New Zealand today by the liner Southern Cross with his New Zealand-born wife and their family. Dr. Langer will be professor of plant science at Canterbury Agricultural College. Idncoln. He succeeds Professor J. W. Calder. “I am very happy that my new position will allow me to carry on with research,” Dr. Langer said today. ~“I know from conversations with Professor Calder, now in England, that a good team of research students is available. As yet I cannot say what the main lines of research will be. I must make a detailed study of New Zealand’s special problems before this can be determined.” Dr. Langer is well qualified for his task. After seven years as a practical farmer in Worcestershire he obtained his B.Sc. degree in agriculture with distinction in 1948. He then concentrated on agricultural botany and took B.Sc. with first class honours. He also held the Hacking Scholarship and a Kings College Bursary. Research Studentship When the Agricultural Research Council awarded him a research studentship he did a great deal of work on nitrogenous fractions in wheat. A thesis on nitrogenous metabolites in tillering plants gained him a doctorate of . philosophy at the Grasslawt Research Institute at Hurley, Beiftshire. Dr. Langer -said that Professor Calder and he had had many discussions on New Zealand problems and. he thought Professor Calder had given nim a very good background, on what to expect in New Zealand. Dr. Langer will travel to Christchurch tomorrow night by steamer express. Hia wife,, who as Miss Hilary Wilton gained an M.Sc. at Victoria University College, Wellington, was met by her parents-today and will spend the next week or -so with them in Auckland. - There are two children. ■ A boy aged six and a girl aged three.