F. Wolfgang Schnell

F. Wolfgang Schnell (1984)

F. Wolfgang Schnell (born May 18, 1913 in Bad Oeynhausen ; † December 29, 2006 in Stuttgart ) was a German agricultural scientist. He was one of the outstanding experts in the field of applied genetics and plant breeding in the second half of the 20th century.

Live and act

Schnell attended high school in Celle , Halle and Leipzig . After graduating from high school (1931), he completed an agricultural apprenticeship (1932–1934) on Gut Deinstermühle (district of Stade). He then studied agricultural sciences in Berlin, Munich and Göttingen (1935–1939). The further professional career was interrupted by military service (1939-1945) and Soviet captivity (1945-1948). As a doctoral student from Wilhelm Seedorf , he received his doctorate in 1949 at the University of Göttingen with a dissertation in business administration. He then completed a two-year plant breeding training at the that time in Voldagsen (district Hameln-Pyrmont accommodated) Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIZ). From 1952 he headed the field of cross-pollinated grains at the MPIZ branch in Scharnhorst (district of Hanover). His main interest was general breeding methodology and the genetic basis of heterosis . He gained valuable suggestions for this in 1958 during a six-month study visit to North Carolina State College, Raleigh, and to other leading universities in the USA. In 1963 he completed his habilitation in plant breeding with Arnold Scheibe at the University of Göttingen . In the same year he was appointed full professor and director of the newly established Institute for Plant Breeding with State Plant Breeding Institute at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart. Until his retirement in 1981 he headed the chair for applied genetics and plant breeding there. After the state plant breeding institute was separated from the institute (in 1968 as part of a university reform), Schnell remained its senior director until 1979.

Scientific achievements

Even during his time in Scharnhorst, Schnell's research received great national and international attention. He made significant contributions to the further development of the biometric, population genetic and quantitative genetic basis of plant breeding. He achieved groundbreaking progress by generalizing the coupling theory to any number of loci, modeling the influence of coupling on the correlation between related genotypes and optimizing alternative methods of multi-level and index selection. He also contributed significantly to a deeper understanding of heterosis (hybrid growth) and to a higher effectiveness of hybrid breeding methods. By introducing current biometric methods, he also put plant breeding field trials on a modern basis that is adapted to the international state of research.

In the experimental field, Schnell in Scharnhorst pursued the goal of developing the first hybrid varieties for cross-pollinated rye and maize. In the case of rye, he laid the foundation for a program (later continued by Hartwig H. Geiger ) to search for cytoplasmic inherited male sterility for commercial hybrid seed production, and in the case of maize he succeeded in producing the first precocious double hybrid ('Velox', German fast) to breed.

Schnell successfully continued the quantitative, genetic and breeding method research work in Hohenheim. He and his working group made significant progress particularly in the analysis of the influence of epistatic gene interactions on heterosis and on the pattern of variation in divisive generations. Above all, Schnell's work on the optimal design and dimensioning of a breeding process from the creation of the initial variation to the finished variety met with great interest on the part of practical breeders. The theoretical studies were accompanied by extensive validation experiments. In addition to maize and rye, the latter also extended to self-fertilized and partially cross-pollinated crops. For this purpose, he had successfully applied for the establishment of a test station for plant breeding in Hohenheim with branch offices in Kehl (Upper Rhine Plain) and St. Johann (Swabian Alb). Many experiments were carried out in collaboration with breeding companies. Even after his retirement (1981) Schnell was actively involved in breeding research. With numerous publications and lectures, he made important contributions to the progress of breeding research during these years.

Schnell's “trademarks” were his outstanding thinking skills, the clarity of his teaching and research concepts and his consistent action. At conferences and in committee work, he was committed to pioneering developments in plant breeding. In doing so, he created the essential prerequisites for the later establishment of the Hohenheim research focus “Biotechnology and Plant Breeding” (1985) and the “Plant Breeding Competence Center” (2003). The mainspring for Schnell's great creativity and creativity was his irrepressible urge to gain knowledge. He himself compared his enthusiasm for science with the feverish search for a gold digger.

Teaching

Since Schnell was appointed to a newly established chair in Hohenheim, it was initially his primary task to set up a comprehensive, up-to-date lecture program. According to his disposition and experience, he placed particular emphasis on the theoretical principles of plant breeding and the general principles of breeding methodology. He divided the individual breeding processes into four categories (line, population, hybrid and clone breeding). This classification, based on seed production, the genetic structure and reproducibility of the varieties, and the reproductive biology of the plant species concerned, has been adopted by many colleagues around the world because of its clarity and unambiguity. In addition, Schnell laid the foundation for a modern biometric and population genetic course. These areas were significantly strengthened after Schnell established a chair for biometrics (H. Thöni) and population genetics (HH Geiger) in Hohenheim in 1971 on the initiative of Schnell. Schnell made great contributions to the further development of the Hohenheim agricultural studies. He made significant contributions to transforming the broadly based, six-semester course into an eight-semester course with specializations in the fields of plants / soil, animals, economics and technology. In order to enable further scientific in-depth study in the fields of plants and animals, Schnell and Dietrich Fewson (animal breeding) initiated the establishment of a new course in agricultural biology, which was in great demand from the start.

Schnell's “Hohenheim Plant Breeding School” resulted in 26 doctoral students, many of whom achieved leading positions in breeding research or practice.

Honors

• 1978 Award of the Max Eyth Medal in Silver from the German Agricultural Society (DLG)
• 1980: Honorary doctorate from the Georg-August University of Göttingen
• 1981 Award of the "Golden Corn Grain" and honorary membership of the German Maiskomitees eV (DMK)
• 1992: Honorary member of the Society for Plant Breeding eV (GPZ)
• 1997: Awarded the title Distinguished Pioneer in Heterosis by the International Corn and Wheat Research Center CIMMYT in Mexico
• 2006: Patron saint of the F. W. Schnell endowed professorship for Crop Biodiversity and Breeding Informatics at the University of Hohenheim by KWS SAAT AG

Fonts (selection)

• Elementary methods of statistics. In: Handbook of Plant Breeding. 2nd Edition. Volume I, Parey, Berlin / Hamburg 1958, pp. 732-780 ,.
• Inheritance analysis for quantitative trait variation. In: Handbook of Plant Breeding. 2nd Edition. Volume I, Parey, Berlin / Hamburg 1958, pp. 815-832.
• On plant selection in successive stages. Invited paper, Ann Meet Amer Soc Agron, cf. Agronomy abstracts. Vol 50, 1958.
• Some general formulations of linkage effects in inbreeding. In: Genetics. 46, 1961, pp. 947-957.
• Heterosis and inbreeding effects. In: Max Planck Institute for Animal Breeding and Animal Nutrition. Special volume, 1961, pp. 291-314.
• The covariance between relatives in the presence of linkage. In: WD Hanson, HF Robinson (Eds.): Statistical Genetics and Plant Breeding 1963. NAS-NRC 982, Washington, pp. 468-483.
• The covariance between relatives in a gene orthogonal population. I. General theory. In: Biometr Z. 7, 1965, pp. 1-49.
• HH Geiger, FW Schnell: Cytoplasmic male sterility in rye (Secale cereale L.). In: Crop Sci. 10, 1970, pp. 590-593.
• Genetic models for hereditary analysis of quantitative traits in crops. In: Acta Univ Agric. (Brno) 21, 1973, pp. 229-242.
• Type of variety and average performance in hybrid maize. In: Z Plant breeding. 74, 1975, pp. 177-188.
• Progress and problems in utilizing quantitative variability in plant breeding. In: Plant Research and Development. 7, 1978, pp. 32-43.
• FW Schnell, IS Singh: Epistasis in three-way crosses involving early flint and dent inbred lines of maize. In: Maydica. 23, 1978, pp. 233-238.
• A synoptic study of the methods and categories of plant breeding. In: Z Plant breeding. 89, 1982, pp. 1-18.
• Modeling basic epistasis for quantitative genetic studies. In: Vorr Pflanzenzuchtg. 7, 1984, pp. 1-11.
• Quantitative genetics in crop improvement. In: BS Weir, EJ Eisen, MM Goodman, G. Namkoong (eds.): Proc 2nd Intern. Conf. Quant Genetics, Raleigh, NC, USA 1987. pp. 462-477.
• FW Schnell, CC Cockerham: Multiplicative vs. arbitrary gene action in heterosis. In: Genetics. 131, 1992, pp. 461-469.
• About breeding planning and the plant breeder's decision-making leeway. In: Vorr Pflanzenzuchtg. 33, 1996, pp. 227-244.
• Nostalgia with negations: the delicate relationship between heterosis and hybrid breeding. In: Report on the 48th working conference of the working group of * Saatzuchtleiter 1997. BAL Gumpenstein, Austria, pp. 1–5.

credentials

• Melchinger AE (1998) Prof. Dr. Dr. hc F. Wolfgang Schnell, the Nestor of Hohenheim Plant Breeding on his 85th birthday. In: Talking about, for and about plant breeding. pp27-31. Series of publications by the Federal Association of German Plant Breeders, Bonn.
• Röbbelen G (Ed., 2009) Schnell, Friedrich, Wilhelm, Wolfgang. In: Bibliographical lexicon on the history of plant breeding. Front plant breeding 80: 801-802, Göttingen, ISSN  0723-7812 .

Web links

• Biographical overview by FW Schnell
• Commemoration of the 90th birthday of FW Schnell
• Contract signing for the FW Schnell endowed professorship for crop biodiversity and breeding informatics