Berthold Speidel

Berthold Speidel (born September 30, 1912 in Tübingen , † May 19, 1988 in Bad Hersfeld ) was a German grassland sociologist.

Life

Speidel, son of a school principal, studied natural sciences and mathematics at the universities in Freiburg i. Br. , Bonn , Munich and finally in Münster , where he received his doctorate in 1939 with a thesis on the physiology of bleeding in higher plants. He then worked as a scientific assistant at the Reich Biological Institute for Agriculture and Forestry in Berlin-Dahlem and, after the Second World War, for a short time as a plant sociologist in Baden-Württemberg. Since 1950 he has been working at the Hessian teaching and research institute for grassland management and forage production - first in Wehrda , and since 1952 at the Eichhof in Bad Hersfeld . Here he headed the Institute for Grassland Botany until 1977 .

Speidel was an excellent expert on the Hessian grassland . His plant-sociological mappings are important contributions to the vegetation of Hesse. The notable contributions on the biodynamics of grassland areas include his investigations into the surface and underground production of matter in a golden oat meadow.

Fonts (selection)

• Studies on the physiology of bleeding in higher plants . Diss. Phil. Münster 1939. Zugl. in: Planta Vol. 30, 1939, pp. 67-112.
• The grassland, the basis of the farms on the Vogelsberg. Results and evaluation of a plant-sociological mapping . Lauterbach in Hessen 1963 = series of publications by the Vogelsberg soil association, no.3.
• For above and below ground material production of a golden oat meadow with different fertilization (with A. Weiß). In: Angewandte Botanik Vol. 46, 1972, pp. 75-93.

literature

• Rudolf Arens: Berthold Speidel † . In: The farm's own fodder, Vol. 34, 1988, p. 73.