Conrad von Seelhorst

Conrad von Seelhorst

Conrad von Seelhorst (born April 5, 1853 on the manor Alt-Stüdnitz ( Pomerania ); † July 6, 1930 in Göttingen ) was a German agricultural scientist .

Live and act

Conrad von Seelhorst comes from a long-established family of soldiers. His parents were Lieutenant General Ferdinand von Seelhorst (1805-1887) and his second wife Maria, née von Hövell (1827-1876).

Youth and studies

In 1869 he joined the Navy of the North German Confederation as a cadet and served on various ships of the Imperial Navy. As a naval officer he took part in the circumnavigation of the research vessel SMS Gazelle from 1874–1876 under the command of the sea captain Georg von Schleinitz to observe the passage of Venus on the Kerguelen . On this research trip he was responsible for the meteorological and astronomical measurements. Due to a serious lung condition, he had to give up naval service in 1878.

After several years working on various farms, he began studying agriculture. However, the study semesters were often interrupted by stays in a sanatorium lasting several months. In 1886 he became a member of the Corps Agronomia Jena. In 1888 he was at the University of Jena in Theodor Freiherr von der Goltz with a business work on the rye as a measure of value for agricultural calculations Dr. phil. PhD. In 1890 he completed his habilitation in Jena for the entire field of agricultural studies.

Private lecturer in Jena

During the next six years Conrad von Seelhorst stayed as a lecturer at the Agricultural Institute of the University of Jena. Under the influence of his teacher Theodor Freiherr von der Goltz , he had initially turned to business management issues, but the focus of his scientific interests soon shifted to the field of crop production . In 1892 he published a well-known teaching and manual on arable and meadow cultivation on peatland. For a long time it was a standard work of bog culture . In 1895 Conrad von Seelhorst was appointed associate professor and in the same year was appointed head of the agricultural research station at the University of Jena.

Professor of Crop Science in Göttingen

In 1896 he took over the professorship for crop science at the Agricultural Institute of the University of Göttingen, which was orphaned by the early death of Georg Liebscher . In the institute, which has existed since 1872, he found optimal conditions for research on plant cultivation thanks to the presence of a large test field and a modern vegetation hall.

Since Wilhelm Fleischmann , the founder of dairy science, accepted a call to Göttingen at the same time as Conrad von Seelhorst , the directorate of the Agricultural Institute was shared. Fleischmann was appointed director of the institute, Conrad von Seelhorst was initially "only" the head of the agricultural test field. It was not until Fleischmann's resignation in 1912 that both directorates were reunited and Conrad von Seelhorst also took over the management of the institute. He worked at this institute for 27 years, until his retirement in 1922. Here he found his real life task.

Fertilization trials

In Göttingen, Conrad von Seelhorst initially continued the experiments started by his predecessor on the different nutrient requirements of cultivated plants. In vegetation containers and under field conditions, he examined the relationships between the nutrient supply in the soil and the root growth of the cultivated plants.

His studies of the depth of the roots with different fertilization intensities of the soil can be classified as a scientific pioneering work. In field tests, he was able to demonstrate the beneficial influence of fertilization not only on the mass, but also on the number and depth of the roots. The observation in agricultural practice that optimally fertilized plant stocks survive dry weather periods better than weakly fertilized ones, could now be partly explained by the higher proportion of roots in the deeper soil layers.

Conrad von Seelhorst supervised the long-term fertilization tests that had been carried out on the test field of the Agricultural Institute since 1873 particularly intensively . In addition, with the help of long-term series of tests , he was able to quantify the nutrient losses that occur due to leaching during the cultivation of green manure plants.

Experiments on the water consumption of the cultivated plants

The focus of Conrad von Seelhorst's scientific work was on studies of the water consumption of agricultural crops. In continuation of the work of the agricultural physicist Ewald Wollny , he not only quantified the total water consumption of the most important crops grown in Central Europe, but also examined in detail their dependence on soil, climate and fertilization.

In these experiments, Conrad von Seelhorst methodically broke new ground. He set up one of the most modern lysimeter systems of its time on the test field of the Agricultural Institute . The knowledge gained from his extensive lysimeter investigations on the growth factor water became directional for further research in this area.

Editor of business textbooks

The extensive activity as a crop scientist left Conrad von Seelhorst little time to continue the business studies he started in Jena. In spite of this, he continued to work in this area in Göttingen and campaigned for the management studies, which were then severely neglected at the universities, to regain their appropriate place in the overall field of agricultural science. The revision of some textbooks and handbooks by his teacher and friend Theodor Freiherr von der Goltz, who died in 1905, served this goal.

In several of his Göttingen publications on economics, Conrad von Seelhorst shows ways of paying greater attention to the general economic laws in agricultural science. In the one-sidedness that technology had achieved with the application of scientific laws, he saw a serious danger for the farm.

Teaching

Conrad von Seelhorst's teaching area in Göttingen encompassed almost the entire field of plant production theory. He held lectures on general and special plant cultivation, meadow and pasture cultivation, bog culture, weed science, plant diseases and plant breeding. There were also practical exercises, seminars, demonstrations on the test field and excursions. For agricultural students he published a study guide with an overview of the institute's facilities, courses and examination conditions at the University of Göttingen.

The special relationship between Conrad von Seelhorst and his students was shaped by the impression of his strong personality. His students, who got to know him as a fatherly friend and helpful advisor, clung to him with great admiration. He led 30 doctoral students to doctorate. One of them is Otto Tornau , who became his successor in office in 1922.

Position in agricultural science

With his teaching and research activities, Conrad von Seelhorst succeeded in breaking down some of the prejudices against agricultural science that existed in traditional university disciplines. The scientific reputation he acquired during his time in Göttingen earned him calls to Hohenheim, Giessen and Berlin, all of which he refused. In 1912 he was appointed a secret councilor, and in 1922 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Halle / Saale.

For almost thirty years Conrad von Seelhorst was co-editor of the Journal für Landwirtschaft , from 1918 also its editor. Almost all of his experimental work, which is always characterized by thoroughness and clarity in the argumentation, he published in this leading journal of agricultural science at the time. The close relationship to agricultural practice is evident in his numerous articles in the Hannoversche Land- und Forstwirtschaftliche Zeitung .

He died unmarried at the age of 78 as a result of a heart attack and found his final resting place in the Göttingen city cemetery.

Major works

• Farming and meadow cultivation on peatland . Published by Paul Parey 1892. 2nd edition under the title Handbuch der Moorkultur, ibid. 1914.
• The agricultural test field of the University of Göttingen . Paul Parey Publishing House, Berlin 1903. 2nd edition, ibid. 1911 .
• Studying agriculture at the University of Göttingen . Publishing house Paul Pary Berlin 1911. 2nd edition ibid. 1919; 3rd edition, ibid. 1920.
• Guide to agricultural management. From Dr. Theodor Freiherr von der Goltz . 4th edition published by Dr. C. von Seelhorst. Publishing house Paul Parey Berlin 1911 = Thaer Bibliothek vol. 93. 5th edition ibid. 1917; 6th edition, ibid. 1920; 7th edition 1922.
• Handbook of agricultural management. From Dr. Theodor Freiherr von der Goltz . 4th edition, edited by Dr. C. von Seelhorst. Paul Parey publishing house in Berlin 1912.
• Agricultural accounting. From Dr. Theodor Freiherr von der Goltz . 11th edition edited by Dr. C. von Seelhorst. Publishing house Paul Parey Berlin 1917 = Thaer Bibliothek vol. 2nd, 12th edition, ibid. 1920; 13. u. 14th edition, ibid. 1922.

literature

• Otto Tornau : C. von Seelhorst † . In: Journal for Agriculture. Vol. 78, 1930, pp. 209-212 (with photo).
• Wolfgang Böhm : Privy Councilor Conrad von Seelhorst (1853-1930). A life for agricultural science. In: Reports on Agriculture. Vol. 63, 1985, pp. 299-309.
• Wolfgang Böhm: Göttingen crop scientist. A bibliography. Regensburg 1988 (with a complete list of all writings by and about Conrad von Seelhorst, pp. 33–56).
• Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Briefadeligen houses. 1908. Second year, Justus Perhes , Gotha 1907, p. 853.

Web links

Commons : Conrad von Seelhorst  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Conrad von Seelhorst in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erwin Willmann (Ed.): Directory of the old Rudolstädter Corps students. (AH. List of the RSC.) 1928 edition, No. 4548.