Elmar Emil Leppik (until 1950 Elmar Lepik) was the first professional Estonian mycologist and the founder of Estonian phytopathology.
He was born 1898 in Jõgeva county. After studying in Tartu university he got 1926. a scholarship to study plant protection in Switzerland, where he defended his doctoral degree 1928.
After that he returned to Estonia and worked as the head of the Phytopathological Experimental Station of Tartu University and established biochemical labarotory there. He teached phytopathology and crop production in University of Tartu and published more than 150 scientific works. Beside the main interest, phytopathology, he arranged fieldwork for collecting wood decaying and mycorrhizal fungi, to discover local mycobiota.
Ex libri of Elmar Leppik ( the collection
of library of the University of Tartu,
author Richard Kivit, 1943)
An example from out ca 4500 specimens collected by Leppik, Phytophthora infestans from 1925)
In 1944 EL emigrated and continued working as a scientist in Germany and USA. He died in 1978 in Beltsville.
An article about E. Leppik