In memory of Giuseppe La Malfa

Abstract

We recall the main stages of the scientific and professional career of Giuseppe La Malfa (1937-2018), emeritus professor of the University of Catania, whose research, training and institutional activities developed over a fifty-year period. Professor La Malfa, mentor and researcher, known and appreciate dnationally and internationally, certainly contributed, with his personal and institutional commitment, to raising the prestige of the University of Catania. What is striking is the foresight, which for a long time has allowed him to follow original and innovative paths and that has allowed him to develop and articulate the areas of the scientific disciplinary sector of Vegetable and Flower crops, thanks to his ability to identify andprefigure new spaces for training commitment. His role in coordinating research was intense, continuous and full of meaningful moments. A significant commitment that saw him as promoter and/or responsible of numerous research and study initiatives in the field of FAO, UE, MIPAC, MURST, CNR. The institutional and managerial activity has led him to make an important contribution towards the Institute of Vegetable and Flower crops before and the Department of Horticulture and Food Technologies later. Professor La Malfa was also President of the Experimental Institute for Citrus Agriculture of Acireale (CT) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, member of the technical support groups of the Department of Agricultureand Forests of the Sicilian Region, of the Regional Council for Cultural and Environmental Heritage and ofthe Regional Council for the protection of the natural heritage. His active participation in numerous scientific partnerships at national and international level was continue and assiduous. The framework outlined,also for the limits that the synthesis requires, makes only partly due to the cultural vivacity, to the analytical sagacity, to the continuous curiosity that have characterized the work of prof. La Malfa. This is certainly not enough to give adequate testimony of the role that he had as a teacher of generations of students who, with his great humanity and sensitivity, he managed to train and to excite.