Carl Kraus (agricultural scientist)

Carl Kraus (born January 5, 1851 in Stadtamhof near Regensburg , † October 15, 1918 in Munich ) was a German crop scientist and plant breeder.

Carl Kraus

Life

Kraus, the son of an elementary school teacher, studied natural sciences, economics and agriculture at the University of Munich from 1869 . There he received his doctorate in 1875 under the botanist Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli with a thesis on chlorophyll . Then he went as a teacher to the district arable farming school in Triesdorf (Middle Franconia), where he also managed a seed control station and carried out container and field tests.

From 1884 Kraus worked as a teacher at the district agricultural school in Kaiserslautern . In 1888 he was appointed professor at the Agricultural Central School in Weihenstephan , where he was appointed director in 1892. He reorganized this training facility so comprehensively within a few years that it was elevated to an academy in 1895. Kraus held lectures here on arable and plant cultivation and dealt with the excavation of plant roots.

In 1901, Carl Kraus took over the chair for arable and crop science at the agricultural department of the Technical University of Munich as the successor to Ewald Wollny . Here he devoted himself increasingly to seeds and varieties and to plant breeding. The establishment of the Bavarian State Plant Breeding Institute in 1902 was essentially his work. As the first director of this institute, which he headed until 1910, he set new standards for seed cultivation in Bavaria.

Honors

Kraus was an honorary philistine in the Corps Agronomia Weihenstephan . A street in Freising is named after him .

Research services

One focus of his research activities were long-term experiments on the stability of the grain stalks and how they are influenced by natural growth factors and by agricultural measures. This work found a crowning glory in the extensive work The Storage of Grains published in 1908 . Formation and prevention with special consideration of breeding for stability . Kraus dealt in detail with the current question of piling up the grain at the turn of the century in his book The cultivation of grain with new aids and new methods . Of his independent writings, the monographs on toadflax (1909) and on couch grass (1912) deserve special mention. Both publications contain the latest knowledge about the crop control measures for these weeds.

As early as Weihenstephan, Kraus studied the root growth of agricultural crops in natural places. His four-part essay, Studies on the Rooting of Cultivated Plants in Physiological and Cultural Relationships , published in the journal "Research in the Field of Agricultural Physics" from 1892 to 1896 is one of the "classic" works in the field of root ecology . Kraus continued this type of root investigation in fields in Munich. His contribution, published in "Fühlings Landwirtschaftlicher Zeitung" in 1914, on the spread of roots in stocks of pure and mixed seeds is considered methodologically groundbreaking.

Carl Kraus, at the same time the founder of Bavarian barley breeding, is one of the most prominent figures in crop science in Bavaria. Through his committed involvement in the Bavarian Agricultural Council, in agricultural educational institutions and in agricultural associations, he had also earned a high reputation among farmers. From 1907 he held the title of Privy Councilor. In 1908 the Board of Trustees of the Liebig Foundation awarded him the Golden Liebig Medal.

Fonts (selection)

• Studies on the rooting of cultivated plants in physiological and cultural relationships . In: Research in the field of Agricultural Physics Vol. 15, 1892, pp. 234–286; Vol. 17, 1894, pp. 55-103; Vol. 18, 1895, pp. 113-166 and Vol. 19, 1896, pp. 80-129.
• About seed breeding in Bavaria . Yearbook of the German Agricultural Society 20, 1905, pp. 340–351
• The storage of the grain. Formation and prevention with special consideration of breeding for stability . Publishing bookstore Eugen Ulmer Stuttgart 1908.
• The common toadflax . Verlag Paul Parey Berlin 1909 = work of the German Agricultural Society H. 166.
• The common couch grass . Verlag Paul Parey Berlin 1912 = work of the German Agricultural Society H. 220.
• The cultivation of the grain with new tools and new methods . Paul Parey Berlin 1913; 2. rework. Edition by Ludwig Kießling, ibid. 1919 = Landwirtschaftliche Hefte No. 22.
• For knowledge and distribution of the roots in stocks of pure and mixed seeds . In: Fühlings Landwirtschaftliche Zeitung vol. 63, 1914, pp. 337–362, 369–383 and 401-412.

literature

• Ludwig Kießling: Privy Councilor Professor Dr. C. Kraus † . In: Landwirtschaftliches Jahrbuch für Bayern, vol. 8, 1918, pp. 539-546 (with picture).
• Ludwig Kießling: Carl Kraus . In: Reports of the German Botanical Society, vol. 36, 1918, II. General Assembly Booklet, pp. 117–122 (with list of publications).
• H. Room: Weihenstephan under Lintner and Kraus 1880–1901 . In: Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Jahrbuch vol. 39, 1962, pp. 842–864.
• G. Aufhammer u. L. Reiner: Privy Councilor Prof. Dr. Carl Kraus the founder of Bavarian brewing barley . In: Brauwissenschaft Jg. 18, 1965, pp. 378–381.
• Heinz Haushofer:  Kraus, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 691 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Carl Kraus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science