MY PROFESSIONAL COURSE

 

I was born in Algiers the 22nd of September 1934, in a family of medicine doctors (my parents) and of General Postmasters (my grand-parents from mother and father sides). All my childhood took place in Algeria, a country which impressed me and to which, in spite of the appearances, I am deeply attached.

I have done all my studies, at first in the primary schools attached in the different colleges of Algiers, then in two secondary schools, the Emile-Felix Gauthier and the General Bugeaud Lyceums. After these secondary studies, literary at first then scientific, ratified in 1952 by a Baccalaureate in Mathematics, I joined the agronomic schools preparatory class of the Lyceum Saint Louis in Paris and, in 1955, I was received into the National Agronomical Institute in Paris.

During these studies, my interest for biology and natural sciences has been constant and developped and matured under the influence of my different professors, particularly the Professor Georges Viennot-Bourgin. Thanks to this last man, during my agronomical studies, I became acquainted with the Plant Pathology and the world of parasitic fungi.

My eagerness to work in tropical countries, probably owing to my familial links with North Africa, leads me to join the research staff of ORSTOM, the French Office for Scientific and Technical Research in Overseas countries, now IRD, the Research Institute for Development. During my first years in this Institute I was directed by some enthusiastic searchers such as Claude and Mireille Moreau, Jean Chevaugeon and Georges Merny.

After a first stay in Ivory Coast (1958-1959) at the Adiopodoume Research Center where I studied the Maize American Tropical Rust, at that time a major plant pathology problem in Tropical Africa, and after two years of military duties as a deputy-lieutenant on the Algeria -Morocco frontier (1959-1961), the Professor Leon Roger, manager of the ORSTOM plant pathology service, gave me the responsability of the Plant Pathology Laboratory which was opened in the French Institute of Oceania, in New Caledonia. After a round-the-world maritime travel, I arrived in New Caledonia, with my family, in April of the year 1962.

During my two stayings in New Caledonia, from 1962 to 1968, my interest, in the laboratory and in the field, turned on indigenous foodcrops of the south pacific area ( taros and yams) and on export crops, such as coffee in New Caledonia, cocoa and coconut tree in New Hebrides (Vanuatu) or vanilla in French Polynesia. One part of my duties was also to collaborate actively to the formations and the officering actions of the South Pacific Commission, and to work on problems of attuning the different phytosanitary regulations of the several countries of the area, specially to those depending of french legislation.

During these research activities, I was above all keenly interested in studies on the mycological parasitic flora of the south pacific islands, particularly in New Caledonia, and on the mycorhizian associations of the endemic vegetation of the southern part of New Caledonia (Podocarpus and Casuarina). So, I kept up strong relations with some specialists of fungi groups, either in the National Natural History Museum in Paris (Professor-Director Roger Heim) or in the Kew Commonwealth Mycological Institute (Dr M.B.Ellis). These studies, biological or taxonomical, allowed me to recognize, define or describe a number of previously known or new species, specially among Rusts and Meliolas, and to display some original characters of the mycorhizian associations in the south of New Caledonia which allow some plants growing on poor or toxic soils to survive. From these studies, I drew out a lot of scientific publications and, in 1968, a biological sciences doctorate Thesis upheld in the Rouen University (Professor Boullard).

From the year 1969, I was posted in tropical Africa, at first in the Congo-Brazzaville Republic. I took here the scientific responsability and management of the Plant Pathology Laboratory which was created some years before by my friend Andre Ravise in the ORSTOM Research Center of Brazzaville.This laboratory was devoted to the study of biology and genetics of tropical Phytophthora, specially Phytophthora palmivora on cocoatree, Phytophthora parasitica on pawpaw and Phytophthora cinnamomi on avocado tree. My personal studies were on the methods of reproduction of these fungi, particularly during their saprophytic phase of development, and I could put in evidence, in collaboration with other researchers of the laboratory, the fundamental diploidic nature of the cycle of these Pythiaceous fungi and the prominent part of the light influence in the set up and in the regulation of sexual or asexual reproduction. These last studies were, in part, carried out with the facilities of the Spectral Illuminator in the CNRS Phytotron of Gif-sur-Yvette (France).

During these years spent in Brazzaville, I was also, part time, deputy-professor in the Botanical and Biological Sciences School of the Brazzaville University where I had joined the staff directed by the Professor Pascal Lissouba.

This action at the head of the Brazzaville research team allowed us to take part in the international scientific community, by the means of the Working Group on Phytophthoras initiated by the Scientific Commitee of the United African Organisation (OUA). One of the annual meetings of the Group took place in Brazzaville in 1972 and, with my colleagues, we have participated actively to this meeting and to a number of other international or european scientific meetings.

The Huguenin family in 1974

 

For familial reasons, in 1975, I had to return to France where I spent a year in the Orsay Science School Laboratory of Cryptogamy. After this year of monitoring third cycle science students, I was sent to Ivory Coast, in 1976, to take the direction of the reserch team of the Adiopodoume Research Center. With the administrative management of the laboratory, my duties were to coordinate the researches on Anthracnosis due to Colletotrichum fungi and those on the Hevea Root Rot. The results obtained during these studies were well valorised, by publications or by participations in International Scientific Meetings and, particularly, I assumed a personal part in the organisation and enlivening of a special session on Rubbertree Pathology during the International Meeting on Tropical Crops Protection held in Lyon (France) in 1981.

I came back to France in 1980, after eighteen years of overseas stays. At the general Headquarters of ORSTOM, in Paris, I took part, since this date, to the development and functioning of the Scientific Programming Service just created by Professor Camus, General Director, and commited to Roger Fauck and Jean Pierre Tonnier. Under their responsability I took in charge the whole sector of Biological and Agronomical Sciences, assuming administrative management and scientific coordination of research problems of my competence. I took also part in the conception of a new project for ORSTOM which, several years later, should lead to the mutation of the Office in the french Institute of Research for Development (IRD). I was also, during these years, representative of ORSTOM near some scientific authorities, such as the Managing Council of ECOTROP (CNRS Laboratory of Tropical Ecology), the Biotechnology Mission of the Reserch and Industry french Ministry, the Managing Council of IRHO (french Institute for the Research on Oils and OilYielding plants), or some scientific committees of the GERDAT. I was also, during the same time, appointed as Consultant Expert by the International Agricultural Development Service (IADS).

After this experience in research management, in addition to that acquired since 1973 as a member of the Technical Commitee of Plant Pathology and Applied Zoology, the General Manager of ORSTOM trusted me with some administrative and scientific responsabilities. At first, I was appointed Director of the ORSTOM Center of Lome, in Togoland, and Representative of ORSTOM in Togoland and Benin Republics, then Technical Advisor on management and scientific organisation near the direction of the Institute of Studies and Agricultural Researches, in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). Above all, I was elected in 1984 President of the Scientific Commission "Vegetal World Sciences" where, from 1984 to 1994, as president of the Commission then vice-president and elected member of the main instance of ORSTOM, the Scientific Board, I took part in the organisation and setting of the new french organigram of Overseas Researches, born of the reforms initiated in 1983.

All these administrative activities and duties were put away from the operative research. However, I could during the years spent in Togo maintain a research activity, in the laboratory and in the field, in collaboration with a togolese researcher and some students. My interest, during these studies, was on parasitic phanerogams, of the genus Striga, very frequent on grain crops (maize, sorgho and millet) in this part of tropical Africa.

The complete list of my publications and scientific communications, during all these years of scientific activity, is available under the following link : scientific publications of Bernard Huguenin

I retired in 1994, after more than thirty years in tropical countries and I am now living in Nantes, near my children and grand-children, at the edge of Britany where, since several years, we spent our holidays in the familial house. Since ten years, we are also in the habit to go to the Balearic islands where each year, in spring and autumn, we can find, my wife and I, a mild climate which remember us the one we have had in North Africa during our childhood.

During these years of Overseas work, I received, with pride, some official honours which, in spite they are sometimes called rattles, are obvious witnesses of a career achievement: Military Value cross (1960) and Fighting cross, Agricultural Merit Order knight cross(1978), National Merit Order knight cross (1988).

 

 

Jacqueline Baldou

 

Jacqueline Baldou, my wife since 1956, has been always beside me to share the good moments of this career and to face the problems and difficulties we have sometimes encountered. From our marriage are born four children: Stephane, analyst-programmer, Isabelle, medicine doctor, Laurence, judge and Christine, dental surgeon.