5 December 2012 Long plant science career at Lincoln University sprouted from urgent phone call

A job for which he never had an interview has given retiring Lincoln University Associate Professor of Agronomy George Hill forty satisfying years in a career that has contributed significantly to his field in New Zealand and internationally.

Plant science graduates throughout New Zealand and in numerous countries overseas - many in top positions - have had George as their teacher and research supervisor, and a book he co-authored still stands as a basic text in plant science courses.
 
The lack of an interview was due to the urgency with which he was required by Lincoln College at the start of the first term 1972. “Where’s my agronomist?” asked the College’s Acting Principal and Professor of Plant Science Reinhardt Langer in a desperate phone call to the University of Western Australia in Perth when checking his staff list for the opening of the year.

George, a graduate of the University of Western Australia, had returned to Perth after four years in Papua New Guinea as an agronomist. He had accepted a new job in Thailand, but it was the time of the Vietnam War and the “domino theory” of falling states did not make that country an attractive proposition. Simultaneously he had indicated his interest in a job at Lincoln College in the safer and  more distant “domino” of New Zealand. Hence the phone call seeking his whereabouts!  

George had been thinking strategically, as a military man might, and therein lies the story of a second career, parallel to plant science.  George joined the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in 1956 as a recruit seaman and was commissioned two years later. It was the start of a distinguished career as a naval reserve officer in Australia and New Zealand stretching over more than 30 years. Highlights included shore and sea-going commands; promotion to captain in 1983, the first Christchurch RNZVR officer to attain that rank in over 25 years; and appointment as Naval Reserves Adviser to the New Zealand’s Chief of Naval Staff.  In Christchurch, he was Commanding Officer of HMNZS Pegasus.

While the call of the sea as a career was strong, the call of the land was stronger, but George has enjoyed the best of both worlds. Accolades have included a Fellowship of the Agronomy Society of New Zealand, and the rare double of the Royal Navy Reserve Decoration and the Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve Decoration.  

“Lincoln College had a good name in Western Australia,” said Mr Hill, “particularly through an active group of farm management consultants and advisors who largely established the farm consultancy profession there.

“For me one of the big attractions of Lincoln College was its use of on-farm teaching. This included annual field trips to the North Island and a system of farmer tutors. It was a very good way of teaching. Whenever possible I accompanied the students on these North Island tours.”

He says that when he started teaching at Lincoln College classes were “large and rowdy with up to 200 diploma students jammed into a single lecture theatre”.

“We referred to it as ‘crowd control’ and many of the students regarded the lectures simply as entertainment.

“Today that has all changed, students are very focussed, lecture theatres are high tech, and with new developments in information technology a lot of learning is done on line.”

Mr Hill took his teaching responsibilities very seriously and was a respected member of the Association of University Teachers  (now the Tertiary Education Union) and a committee member for 28 years. He had a particular interest in negotiations around conditions of employment and non-financial employment benefits.  In recognition of his services he was made a Life Member of the Union in 2007.

“I made many good friends in the AUT. You also get a good idea of how universities function and you can be involved in shaping university policy and improving the employment conditions of your  colleagues. Serving your colleagues in this way is very satisfying work and I can thoroughly recommend it.”

Service is an important virtue in George’s outlook on life and in addition to his naval reserve and union work, he has been a Justice of the Peace since 1994 and was regularly called on in this capacity on the University campus for witnessing documents and other JP functions.

His close  involvement with campus life also extended to membership of the Lincoln University Choir - which sings at Graduation and on other university occasions. He is also a member of the Diamond Harbour Choir.

As a researcher - the other role in a university academic’s life - Mr Hill’s focus as an agronomist has been on legumes and their use as forage for ruminant animals and as a protein source for monogastric livestock and their use in sustainable cropping systems.

His work on lupins has been particularly significant. He points out that they are a major seed protein food for many countries with a potential yet to be explored in New Zealand. In his research he has shown that lupins can produce highly digestible dry matter with a high nitrogen content over most of their growth. Once established, lupins can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available for growth and surrounding plants, and thus increase grass growth.

“Lupins definitely have potential as a forage crop on acidic, low-medium fertility soils,” he says.

Mr Hill is Secretary/Treasurer of the International Lupin Association, and is widely respected as a lupin advocate. He once received a letter addressed simply to “The Lupin Expert, New Zealand.” 

Chickpeas were another research interest and Mr Hill saw them as a potentially good drought tolerant cash crop for Canterbury. 

Although retiring, Mr Hill will continue to influence students through the standard plant science text book he co-authored with Emeritus Professor of Plant Science Reinhardt Langer.  Published by Cambridge University Press and first produced in 1982,  Agricultural Plants has run to two editions and been translated into Spanish and Italian.

Mr Hill will also continue to supervise the masters degree work of a couple of students, including  Andrew Pollard of the Falkland Islands.  Lincoln University has had a close connection with farming families on the Falkland Islands over many years. Andrew is a Senior Agricultural Officer on the Falklands and George was on the islands recently examining the experimental work Andrew is doing   with potential pasture legumes for the peaty, acidic soils, for his master’s degree thesis research.

“The Falkland Islands are rich in British naval history and the visit gave me an opportunity to combine my two lifelong loves  -  the sea and the land,” he says.