the most modern methods of fruit/vegetable production and allowed them to accumulate savings, which they spent on expanding and modernizing their own farms. In addition to trips to the USA for internships of practitioners, Pieniążek organized visits of Polish scientists dealing with horticulture on scholarships to primarily American agricultural universities, which allowed them to obtain doctoral degrees and professorship nominations. He was also the head of the British Council Władysław Filewicz scholarship created by Dr. Irena Modlibowska in England, which allowed several dozen scientists from Poland to complete internships at various research institutes in Great Britain. In 1964, Szczepan Pieniążek became a full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). In the years 1966–1971 he was secretary of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forest Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences and vice president of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In the years 1972–1974 he was also the chairman of the Committee of Horticultural Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Szczepan Pieniążek was a member of the International Society for Horticultural Sciences, chairman of the Horticultural Section, vice-president, then president (1970–1974). In his scientific work, Szczepan Pieniążek dealt with widely understood pomology, including the cultivation of fruit trees and berry plants, the protection of orchards, as well as plant physiology. Some of his most important achievements are bringing about the annual fruiting of apple trees of alternately fruiting varieties, introducing low-growing trees to cultivation, developing modern soil care systems, and introducing many valuable apple varieties into production. He has published about 100 scientific papers. He published an academic textbook entitled "Orcharding", which was published in 11 editions - (the last in 2000), and the author of popular science books on fruit-growing "Around the orchard world" (1965) translated into: Czech, Bulgarian, and Hungarian and "When apple trees bloom" (1971 r.) translated into Czech. During Stalinism in Poland, Pieniążek was an active exponent of the ideas of Ivan Michurin and Lysenkoism, which claimed that genes do not participate in inheritance. After a few years, he entirely withdrew his support from the theory. In his memoir, he wrote “ze moje opowiedzenie sie za genetyka lysenkowska stanowi najciemniejsza jego karte…powinienem wiecej kierowac sie rozumem niz entuzjazmem” “My support of Lysenko’s theory was the darkest card in my life…I should use my brain rather than believe the enthusiasm alone”. From the works of Michurin, Pieniążek appreciated the views concerning the cultivation of low-growing