Ewald Schnug
Ewald Schnug (born 7 September 1954) is a German agricultural scientist, university lecturer and researcher specialised in Plant nutrition and Soil science. Life. Schnug was born in Hachenburg, Westerwald, the first child of the master gardener Ewald Schnug and his wife Marianne, née Haas. He grew up at the parental nursery in Altenkirchen, Westerwald. He was baptised a Catholic, was an altar boy from 1960 to 1968 and a member of the parish council St. Jakobus in Altenkirchen from 1970 to 1971. In the early 1970s he was a member of the junior squad of the Christian Democratic  Union of Germany in its Altenkirchen district association and the local branch of the German Life Saving Association. He was married from 1975 to 2006 and is father of three daughters. His formative life-teachers wer the evangelic theologian Fritz Beckmann, the visual artist and the anthroposophist Maria Thun. Zenith of his non-work projects was the restoration and transformation of the UNESCO world heritage "Oberes Wasserloch" in Goslar into the ‘Glucsburgh‘, which is residence and international meeting point for young scientists and artists. In 2014 the Sparkasse foundation in Lower Saxony awarded him the price for monument preservation. Education  and scientific career. Schnug attended the catholic primary scholl in Altenkirchen and completed A levels in the natural science branch in 1974 at the local Westerwald grammar school. In 1978 he received his diploma in the discipline plant production at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel In 1982 he completed his doctorate with Dr. sc. agr. at the Faculty of Agriculture in Kiel where he completed also his DSc in 1989. In 1992 he was awarded the title Dr. rer. nat. habil. by the Faculty of Natural Science of Technischen Universität Carolo Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig. The university lecturers who moulded his  education were the agronomists Arnold Finck and Gerhard Geisler, the quantum physicist Jan Evert Post, the agricultural chemist Erwin Welte and the chemist Meinhart H. Zenk. Career. Ewald Schnug worked at the Institute of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science of Christian Albrechts University in Kiel from 1979 to 1992. He was a scientific staff member until 1983 before he became academic assistant until 1989 and finally senior scientific assistant until 1992. From 1982 to 1990 he lectured Applied Chemistry at the Technical College for Agriculture in Rendsburg. In 1984 he founded the ‘Institut für landwirtschaftliche und landökologische Innovationen und Technologien ‘ (ILLIT) Ltd. Kiel and he remained associate and director until 1994 R & D, CEO vorstand. From 1990 to 1992 he completed teaching and research stays as a scholarship holder of the Heisenberg foundation in Newcastle upon Tyne and Aberdeen. In 1992 he became head of the Institute of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft in Braunschweig (FAL) and since 2008 head of the Institute for Crop and Siol Science of the Federal Research Institute for Cultivated Plants, Julius Kühn-Institut in Braunschweig/Quedlinburg. Since 1992 he is professor and member of the Natural Science Faculty of Carolo-Wilhelmina  University in Braunschweig (nowadays Faculty of Life Sciences). 1995–2014, he represented Germany in the agricultural working groups of HELCOM (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission) of BALTIC21; from 1998 to 2013 he was chairman of the working group. A significant achievement was the formulation of Annex III of the HELSINKI Convention. Since 1996 he is working fo the International Scientific Centre for Fertilizers and Fertilization (CIEC) which was founded in 1933 in Rome. From June 1996 to September 2010 he was vice-president for research and strategic planning, hereafter first German President of the society and since September 2019 its second  Honorary President. From 1993 to 2010 he was a personally appointed member of the Scientific Advisory Board on Fertiliser Issues (BMEL), from 2004 to 2020 (founding) member of the Commission Soil Protection at the German Environment Agency (UBA) and is since 2007 scientific adviser for Germany in the German/Egyptian Research Fund (GERF). End of May 2020 he retired regularly at JKI. Since then he is again appointed CEO of ILLIT. Main research and milestone achievements "(Selection)". Schnug's research portfolio covers investigations of ecological and agronomic aspects from light elements such as nitrogen, sulphur and boron to heavy metals  like iron, manganese, zinc, copper, molybdenum and uranium. Besides research on these chemical-material research topics, he is one of the pioneers of Precision agriculture. Schnug discovered in 1980 in Schleswig-Holstein (Northern Germany) for the first time symptoms of severe sulphur deficiency in oilseed rape on production fields, a phenomenon unknown until then because of high atmospheric sulphur deposits Acid rain. In 1986 Schnug developed the X-ray fluorescence method for the determination of the Glucosinolate-(GSL) content of rapeseed, which was employed already in 1987 nationwide during the harvest period of oilseed rape in order to differentiate old (high  glucosinolate containing) (0-oilseed rape) cultivars from new (low glucosinolate containing (00-oilseed rape) varieties. In the same year he published the scientific proof that sulphur fertilisation increases the glucosinolate content of oilseed rape seeds. He refined the X-ray fluorescence method in 1988 so that it was possible to determine the glucosinolate content in oilseed rape seeds before harvest and it was possible to assess the total glucosinolate content of extracted rapeseed meals. Since 1999 Ewald Schnug worked on Uran in the environment, for example he studied the uranium content in German mineral waters, and uranium contamination of soils  by phosphorus fertilization. In addition, Schnug organized a Workshop which addressed health and ecological problems of uranium and a Conference on the problem of uranium contamination by fertilizer practices in agriculture. At this event u. a. the Secondary electronstheory was postulated as the causal reason for the synergistic effect of radiological and chemical toxicity of uranium and the energy neutral production of clean phosphorus fertilisers by extracting native uranium from phosphate rock was suggested. Teaching. Schnug mentored 80 PhD's at German and international universities, 10 of his scholars habilitated and became appointed at international Universities.