25 July 2008 Fellowship for Lincoln University soil scientist second honour in two months

It’s been a season of honours for Lincoln University soil scientist Professor Hong Di. In June, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and now this month (July) he has been made a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science.

The award recognises his outstanding and sustained contributions to agricultural and horticultural science.

The fellowship was presented to Professor Di at the annual general meeting of the Institute’s Canterbury branch at Lincoln University last night (23 July) by chairperson Associate Professor Jonathan Hickford.  An earlier presentation at the Institute’s Annual Conference in Palmerston North had to be re-scheduled because Professor Di was in Mongolia at the time, attending the World Grassland Congress.

Professor Di is a Lincoln University scientist of international standing. In addition to his position as Professor of Soil and Environmental Science at Lincoln University, he is an Honorary Professor at two universities in China, the Agricultural University in Beijing and Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan.

Professor Di was born in China and holds a degree from the Agricultural University of Hebei, near Beijing.

At Lincoln University Professor Di started his career as a student, graduating Master of Applied Science in Soil Science with First Class Honours in 1989 and  PhD in soil science in 1991. He was subsequently awarded a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Soil Science at Lincoln. He then travelled to Australia taking up a research fellowship at the University of Australia. He returned to Lincoln University as a Research Scientist and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2003 and Professor at the end of 2004.

Professor Di’s career has been marked by the award of many distinguished awards. In 1995 he received the Australian Society of Soil Science’s Medal for the Best Publication by a Young Scientist, and in 2000 he was awarded the New Zealand Society of Soil Science’s ML Leamy Prize for the most meritorious  published contributions  to soil science in New Zealand. This prize stamped him as the top soil scientist of the year. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the New Zealand Society of Soil Science.

Through his extensive publications list he has made significant contributions to knowledge and understanding about the transformations, leaching and environmental impacts of nutrients and agrichemicals in the soil.

Professor Di’s “breakthrough work” in this field enabled him to develop new  decision support models to predict the leaching levels of nitrate and pesticides from soil.

For the past 13 years he has been leader of Lincoln University’s research on the use of nitrification inhibitors to decrease nitrate leaching  and greenhouse gas (nitrous oxide) emissions in intensive grazed pasture systems, work which has led to the development of the eco-n technology.

Presenting the Fellowship certificate, Associate Professor Hickford described Professor Di as an “outstandingly good scientist” and said the award was a “celebration of Di’s work”.

‘Team Effort’

Professor Hong Di said that although the Fellowship award was in his name it was really a recognition of the whole research team at the Centre for Soil and Environmental Quality at Lincoln University. He particularly thanked his colleague Professor Keith Cameron, also a Fellow of the Institute and Head of the Centre for Soil and Environmental Quality, for his great support, leadership and research partnership.

“All our research is a team effort,” said Professor Di, “and it’s great that the team should be recognised in this way.”

The support of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST), Ravensdown Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd, and Lincoln University was also acknowledged by Professor Di.