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Nikolai Konstantinovich Lemeshev
(1938-1005)

        Nikolai K. Lemeshev was born in 1938 in Leningrad.  After graduating from the Faculty of Biology and Soil Sciences of Leningrad State University, he took a postgraduate course at the Department of Biology.   In 1964, he started his employment with the Department of Industrial Crops of the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry.  In 1969, while working with cotton genetic resources, he was awarded a Ph.D. degree.  Dr. Lemeshev had been head of the Department of Industrial Crops since 1983.
        Having a good command of English and Spanish, Dr. Lemeshev was actively involved in collecting missions.  He performed plant germplasm explorations in the former USSR, and many foreign countries, including Mexico.   He was in charge of the Institute's experimental site in Mexico from 1978-1979.   While there, Dr. Lemeshev instituted an extensive program for establishing new gene pools useful in cotton breeding on the basis of hybridization between cultivated species and wild and ruderal forms.  He worked extensively on the study of new unconventional crops and their introduction into cultivation.  In 1992, Dr. Lemeshev was awarded a Senior Doctorate degree and became Doctor of Biological Sciences.  He supervised 9 doctoral students, 7 of which received their Ph.D. degrees.  He also coordinated the VIR/IHA Cannabis Germplasm Preservation Project reproductions for 1993 and 1994.
        N. K. Lemeshev produced 75 scientific publications and had prepared for publication a fundamental monograph: Morphobiological Aspects of Utilization of Wild Cotton Species for Enrichment of the Gene Pool of Cotton Germplasm, which regretfully has yet to be published due to his untimely death on January 25, 1995, while working in his office.