Prof. em. Dr. Josef Nösberger

Josef Nösberger has been Professor of Crop Science- Grassland Science- in the Institute of Plant Science at the ETH Zurich since 1972. He retired October 1, 2000.

He was born on April 28, 1935 as a citizen of St. Antoni and Heitenried. He finished his studies at the ETH Zurich with a dissertation on the ecophysiology of white clover at the Institute of Agronomy. 1964 he joined as research associate the Department of Botany at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, UK to work on the distribution of photosynthates.

He returned to ETH Zurich in 1965 and obtained his venia legendi for Crop Science in 1972. He was elected Associate Professor in 1972, and Full Professor in 1978. He spent one semester as Visiting Professor at the Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin, Madison and one at the invitation of the Plant Research Unit, U.S. Department of Agriculture, at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, U.S.A. The objective of his research was to develop new knowledge about processes controlling growth and nutritive quality of forage grasses and legumes. The largest project of his group on the response of grassland to elevated CO2 has gained the cooperation of 16 research groups at the ETH, as well as of other Swiss, European and North American Universities.

He received several honours.1965 he was nominated Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Science; he is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy (2000), of the Crop Science Society of America (2000) and of the American Society for the Advancement of Science (2000). He is honorary doctor of the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine, Nancy, France, and of the Lviv State Agricultural University, Ukraine.