Lebediantsev, Aleksandr Nikandrovich

Born Aug. 20 (Sept. 1), 1878, in Kaluga; died Jan. 24, 1941, in Moscow. Soviet agronomist and agricultural chemist; Honored Worker in Science and Technology of the RSFSR (1929). Student of K. A. Timiriazev and D. N. Prianishnikov.

Lebediantsev graduated from Moscow University in 1902 and later from the Moscow Institute of Agriculture. He was director of the Shatilov Experimental Station from 1906 to 1927 and a professor at Moscow University from 1924 to 1931. He worked at the All-Union Institute of Fertilizers, Agricultural Techniques, and Soil Science (1934–35) and the All-Union Institute of Beet Agronomy (1935–41). He established the possibility of effective use of phosphate fertilizer in the chernozem zone of the European part of the USSR, determined the comparative effectiveness of various types of inorganic fertilizers for various soils in the USSR, and developed a number of methods for agricultural-chemistry research.