In memoriam

Frank L. Himes

ASA and SSSA Fellow and 68-year member Frank L. Himes passed away peacefully on 10 Oct. 2020. Born in 1927 on a farm in central Indiana, he had degrees from Wabash College and Purdue University. He began teaching, after his Ph.D., at Middle Tennessee State University before moving onto the Ohio State University (OSU) in 1957 where his major responsibility was teaching the beginning soils course. A dedicated teacher, he was a leader in adapting the audio-tutorial method of student-paced instruction to introductory soils courses. Later, when computers became sufficiently powerful, he developed computer graphic units and other computer programs to illustrate the movement of materials in soils and the nutrient cycles.

Also interested in research, Dr. Himes’ focus areas were in soil chemistry and soil fertility, concentrating on the reactions of soil organic matter with heavy metals. He developed graduate courses in soil–plant relationships and in chemistry of humic substances.

A strong advocate of the value of sabbatical leaves, Himes took two, the first in 1966 to Rothamsted Research Center in Harpendon, England, and the second in 1981 in Birmingham, England. This experience led to a realization that while the problems faced are similar, the environment often forces different approaches to the solutions.

He enjoyed learning and sharing knowledge with other agronomy professors and students in ASA and SSSA and was an active volunteer in both Societies. He is survived by his wife, Dee, and children Laura (John), Caroline, and Glenn (Anne), and two grandchildren.

Sanjaya Rajaram

Sanjaya Rajaram, 78, passed away in Cuidad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico on 17 Feb. 2021. A Word Food Prize recipient (2014) and Fellow of ASA (1988) and CSSA (1988), “Raj”, as he was called by those who knew him, carried the mantle of his grand mentors, Norman Borlaug and Glenn Anderson, the driving forces of the wheat revolution of the 20th century. He took over CIMMYT’s bread wheat program in the early 1970s, leading a second Green Revolution in wheat production into the early 2000s that continues today.

Rajaram was born and raised in Raipur, a small Indian farming village near the city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. He studied agriculture at the college in Gorakhpur, close to his home, and went on to earn his M.Sc. at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi under the guidance of M.S. Swaminathan and N.L. Dhawan. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Sydney where he studied plant pathology and breeding under I.A. Watson and N. Derera. He returned to India, working as a post-doctoral fellow for six months before going to work for CIMMYT in Mexico.

In Mexico, Rajaram became head of CIMMYT’s Bread Wheat Breeding Program in 1972. In 1996, he was appointed director of the International Wheat Program. Rajaram’s photographic memory for wheat varieties—and humans—and his grasp of handling large numbers of crosses and management of the populations and nurseries was unparalleled.

During Rajaram’s leadership of the CIMMYT Wheat Program, 481 cultivars were released in 51 countries. These cultivars, grown on about 60 million ha, had increased yield stability and potential, had broad agronomic adaptation and more efficient input utilization, and improved disease resistance. This increased global wheat production by more than 200 million tons during his lifetime across most wheat regions in the world.

Human resource development was a critical component to the success of the world wheat effort. Rajaram interacted with and mentored more than 700 young scientists from around the world and supported many advanced projects in the wheat program with universities worldwide. He published more than 419 publications, 119 of which were in refereed journals. He received numerous honorary degrees and awards.

After his retirement from CIMMYT, Rajaram served as director of ICARDA before formally retiring in 2008. In his retirement, he continued as a special scientific adviser to CIMMYT and ICARDA.

—Submitted by H.J. Dubin, H.-J. Braun, R. Singh, and M. Kohli