Dr. Roland Weber from ESTEBURG Fruit Research and Advisory Centre in Germany has been appointed as Affiliated Professor in Horticultural Plant Pathology to the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University for a five year period with effect from 1 September 2014.

As a world leading expert in plant pathology in fruit species the 46-year-old Roland Weber is involved in many activities in Germany, Norway, United Kingdom, Chile and Denmark. He is the Head of Department of Crop Protection and Diagnostics at ESTEBURG Fruit Research and Advisory Centre.

- We are very pleased to be able to affiliate Roland and to acknowledge Roland’s contribution to the department. We look forward to a strengthened partnership within teaching and research activities given that Roland holds complementary capability to the department. This affiliation will underpin the overall scientific strength of the department within sustainable fruit production and postharvest systems, says the Head of the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University Michelle Williams and continues:

- We hold the leading Danish plant physiological expertise within sustainable fruit production and postharvest systems and are internationally recognised within this research area. To ensure we can strengthen this research discipline we have developed a close and active relationship with Roland Weber on plant pathogens in both the orchard and during postharvest storage.

Working with Danish crops is not new to Roland Weber. In 2012 he identified and documented rubbery rot, a new postharvest pathogen in apples in Denmark.

Roland Weber’s expertise includes identification, biology and control of new and difficult fungal pathogens of fruit crops, such as post-harvest diseases of apples and their control by hot-water treatments, pre-harvest diseases of apples, fungicide resistanceon soft fruits and other crops, and fungal diseases in strawberries, raspberries and cherry trees.

Roland Weber has co-authored the standard university textbook: “Introduction to Fungi”, and published numerous scientific papers on topics of fungal physiology, biochemistry, ecophysiology, plant pathology, teaching techniques in mycology as well as authoring 11 book chapters.

He has been a pioneer in identification of new fungi, research on fungicide resistance, non-chemical control strategies in fruit production, climate change effects on pathology and biotechnological aspects of fungal secondary metabolism.

For more information please contact:

Head of Department Michelle Williams, Department of Food Science, telephone: +45 8715 7957/8715 8335, mobile: +45 2517 0049, e-mail: mw@food.au.dk

Dr. Roland Weber, ESTEBURG Fruit Research and Advisory Centre, Germany, telephone: +49 4162 6016133, e-mail: Roland.Weber@LWK-Niedersachsen.de

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