Dr. Franz Shimon Littauer, Ph.D.

Picture from his wedding in Berlin; https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154295730383082&set=gm.92...

   OBITUARY FRANZ SHIMON LATTAR (LITTAUER) (1893-1978) In Memoriam It is now over a year since the passing of Dr. Franz Shimon Lattar (Littauer), a pioneer in the country of Israel and in the development of the science of plant pathology, particularly of post harvest fruit pathology and physiology. Littauer was born in Berlin on November 13, 1893. He was a member of a Zionist youth organization, "Blau-Weiss," and in 1914, while still a student, he visited Palestine and decided to settle there after the completion of his training. During World War I he served in the German army as an officer, despite being Jewish. In 1921 he graduated from Leipzig University in chemistry, and in 1923 received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Breslau. His interests were many, including the study of engineering. Littauer immigrated to Palestine at the end of 1923. After working for a year on an agricultural settlement he joined Dr. Israel Reichert, the founder of plant pathology research in Palestine, as an assistant at the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Jewish Agency, first in Tel Aviv and later in Rehovot. In this institution (which eventually became The Volcani Center of the Agricultural Research Organization) Littauer worked as Senior Plant Pathologist, and in 1937 founded and subsequently headed the Division of Fruit and Vegetable Storage until his retirement from administrative duties in 1968. However, he continued to work and to show interest in the activities of the Division until the very last days of his life. It should be remembered that in the 1920s and 1930s not much was known in Palestine of agriculturai practices, or about plant diseases. The farmers in the cooperative settlements (mainly kibbutzim and moshavim) were pioneers, mostly young intellectuals, who came to this country with great enthusiasm but with no agricultural tradition or experience. An inventory of the oc- currence of various diseases of agricultural plants was therefore needed urgently. Littauer and the other scientists who joined the Department of Plant Pathology headed by Reichert, studied dif-ferent diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and physiological disorders. In addition, they investigated the influence of climatic and soil factors and developed methods for disease control. During that period the scientific staff of the Department was small, technical aid was limited, the number of laboratories was insufficient, instruments were scarce and the pioneering research work that had to be done was overwhelming, but the enthusiasm of the scientists was great. Until about 1935 Littauer studied a variety of problems, such as the disinfection of tobacco and of different cereals, and diseases of the potato plant and tuber, and of citrus trees and fruit. The results of these studies and recommendations based on them, were published as leaflets of the Extension Department of the Jewish Agency, often anonymously. However, who cared at that time whether one's name would appear on a publication? What mattered was that the results should be quickly introduced into agricultural practice. Sometimes Littauer also wrote articles for local newspapers and journals, such as "Hassadeh," "Hadar" and "Bustnai." In the I930s Littauer also studied diseases of bananas, melons and avocados, but later on most of his research was concentrated on the pathology and physiology of potatoes and citrus fruits. He was the first person in this country to identify diseases of the potato plant mainly of the tubers, caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and physiological disorders. He studied ways of storing potato tubers both for consumption and for use as seed, from harvests mainly during the months of May and June. Cold storage was not available at that time and the storage of potatoes at the high summer and autumn temperatures caused a considerable percentage of decay. One of Littauer's research goals was the prevention and control of diseases which develop during storage. During the early period of his activities, one of the most important problems he tackled was the development of a method for the storage of potato tubers from harvest in spring until autumn sowing, or from harvest in autumn until spring sowing. This was quite a complicated goal because, after harvest, potato tubers are in their dormant period and sometimes at the time of sowing there is no break of dormancy. Inadequate break of dormancy reduces the percentage of germination of tubers and the subsequent development of plants in the field. It was believed at the time that in a country with a warm climate potato tubers cannot be grown for seed because of the rapid development of virus diseases which cause rapid degenera- tion of potato plants. Seed potatoes were therefore imported from abroad, mainly from Ireland. Littauer's re'search, carried out over several years with potatoes grown in different climatic regions of Palestine (coastal plain, mountains, etc.), showed that the changes (deformations) in the potato plants grown in hot areas are the direct result of the high temperatures prevailing in the fields, and not of virus infection. As a result of this research, it became possible to grow potatoes for sowing in Palestine without virus infections and to obtain high yields - by cultivation in areas with low temperatures and where virus-transmitting insects were not present. These findings served as the basis for the introduction, recently, of the cultivation of potato seeds on the Golan Heights. Littauer devoted much of his time to the study of the causes and prevention of post harvest citrus fruit diseases. In the early 1920s Littauer and Reichert found that the drying off of branches and the stem-end rot disease of citrus fruit after harvest were caused by the fungus Diplodia natalensis and that pruning of infected and dried branches prevented the spread of these diseases. They had also shown that rot of the tree collar (gummosis), root rot, and brown rot of the citrus fruit were caused by various species of the fungus Phytophthora. Draining water from around the trees was found to reduce the incidence of these diseases considerably, as the fungus develops mostly in water-saturated soils. Furthermore, Littauer and Reichert found that the main causes of citrus decay in storage were the diseases known as "green mould" and "blue mould," caused by Penicillium digitatum and P. italicurn, respectively, and that these fungi are only able to infect wounded fruit. Thus, as early as 1931, Littauer emphasized the importance of careful handling of fruit during transport and treatment. His recommendations concerning the prevention of the three major diseases of citrus are still valid today. During the British Mandate, Palestine exported considerable quantities of citrus fruit to Britain. Unfortunately, the rate of decay in the exported fruit was 20 to 30%, and sometimes, at the end of the export season, even higher. The fruit was handled by primitive methods, there were no mechanized packing-houses, and sorting and packing were done on mats or on the ground; moreover, the fruit was neither disinfected nor waxed. In 1937 the Mandatory Government proposed that a Laboratory of Citrus Wastage Investigation be created and that the work in Palestine be coordinated with that of British scientists at Cambridge, who studied the fruit after its arrival in Britain, in an attempt to determine the causes of the high rate of decay. Dr. Littauer was chosen to head the new Laboratory. He conducted his studies with the great care and critical mind that were characteristic of him. With his usual logical and systematic approach, Littauer began with an extensive investigation of the different types of decay and their relation to such factors as citrus variety, climatic area, soil type, etc. He soon found that appropriate sanitation measures and careful handling could diminish considerably the rate of rotting after harvest, and that in order to reduce the percentage of rots to a minimum, it was necessary to treat the fruit with disinfectants immediately after harvesting. In 1938, shortly after Tomkins in England discovered that diphenyl had antifungal properties, Littauer studied the mode of action of this chemical and found that its vapors had fungistatic (but not fungicidal) properties against the most important fungi causing post harvest rots in citrus fruit. He determined the quantities of diphenyl needed to protect the fruit during transport and storage, and found that the best way to use this compound was to impregnate it into the wrapping paper. The use of diphenyl-impregnated wraps did not require changes in the routine of citrus fruit handling after harvest, which facilitated the wide-scale introduction of this method of fruit protection and reduced the incidence of rots from 20-40% to 3-5%. Thanks to Littauer's investigations on the properties of diphenyl, it was Israel (Palestine) that first employed this fungistatic agent on a large scale. Littauer made another important contribution to citrus protection when he showed that the best means of controlling post harvest decay is by combined treatment with a fungicide and a fungistatic agent. He introduced the use of nitrogen trichloride as a most suitable fungicide, which was followed by the above-mentioned diphenyl wrap. This became the accepted procedure for the treatment of fruits for export until the establishment of mechanized packing-houses. After World War II, the export of citrus fruit from Israel increased markedly, and it became clear that in order to fetch high prices on foreign markets, the fruit would have to be washed and waxed before packing. This was made possible in the late 1940s, when mechanized packing-houses were built. At that time Littauer and his group developed the method of disinfecting fruit by washing it in borax or, later on, in sodium orthophenylphenate in water. The latter chemical is still used extensively as the best disinfectant in all packing-houses, often followed by wrapping the fruit with diphenyl paper. With these prophylactic procedures, the incidence of decay in exported fruit has dropped to less than 2%. During the 1950s and 1960s, Littauer extended the scope of his Department's research to the fields of post harvest physiology and pathology of different fruits and vegetables, thus creating at The Volcani Center a Division of Fruit and Vegetable Storage which he headed until his retirement. Littauer had a special sympathy for the aims of applied agricultural research and was happy to contribute to this field. He had the capacity to see the problems in all their aspects and to judge what was more important and what was less so ;he knew how to combine theoretical research with the solution of important practical problems. Perhaps this stemmed not only from his personal abilities, but also from his wide background in different areas of biology, chemistry and engineering. Littauer was a person of wide horizons. Besides the natural sciences, he was interested in history and archeology. He had many hobbies, such as photography, horticulture and picking mushrooms, and he enjoyed excursions and conversations with people. Dr. Littauer was a Zionist pioneer, always interested in what was going on in Israel, in the development of science and in the country as such. His modesty, pioneering spirit and sincerity were, and still are, exemplary. His memory lives on in the research units that he created. He will never be forgotten.

Mina Schiffmann-Nadel and Nathan Sharon Phytoparasitica 8: I, 1980 79