Günter Kahnt

Günter Kahnt

Günter Kahnt (* 13. February 1929 in Schnaudertrebnitz , circle Borna , district Leipzig ) is a German agronomist for general crop production and organic farming .

Life path

Günter Kahnt, son of the farmer Alfred Kahnt and his wife Elly, b. Schulze, is married to Renate, geb. Rabbow, daughter of Walther Rabbow and his wife Lydia, b. Sheep. He has three children: Uta, Stefan and Lena.

Kahnt completed an agricultural apprenticeship from 1945 to 1948 and worked from 1950 to 1952 at the German Seed Trading Center in Dresden as a cultivation advisor and seed approver and from 1953 to 1956 as a test technician at the Institute for Grassland at the University of Leipzig and at the Institute for Seed Analysis of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences (DAL) in Dresden-Pillnitz . Since 1953 he took part in the distance learning course for agriculture at the technical college in Weimar.

As a state-certified farmer, he began studying agriculture at the University of Halle (Saale) in 1956 . In 1958 he continued his studies at the University of Göttingen . In 1959 he passed the exam to become a qualified farmer. He then worked as a doctoral candidate at the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding at the University of Göttingen, where he received his doctorate under the aegis of Arnold Scheibe in 1962 with the dissertation “ Changes in the glucoside of o-oxycinnamic acid in the leaves of the white sweet clover during the ontogenesis of the plant ”. This biochemically oriented research direction (trans-cis rearrangement as a prerequisite for coumarin formation) must have fascinated him so much that he continued his work as part of a habilitation from 1964 at the University of Hohenheim under Georg Gliemeroth . In 1969 he completed his habilitation with the thesis " Growth-influencing effect of stereoisomeric cinnamic acid derivatives on seedlings of mustard and three types of grain ".

After that, Kahnt worked as a private lecturer at the Hohenheim Institute for Crop Production, where he had already started field tests for minimal tillage in 1968 . From 1971 to 1973 he was also dean of the agricultural biology department . In 1972 he was appointed adjunct professor. In 1975 he accepted a call as a full professor for general crop production at the University of Hohenheim . He did not accept a later call to the Agricultural Research Institute (FAL) in Braunschweig. Kahnt worked in Hohenheim until 1998.

Research services

For more than three decades, Kahnt has researched fundamental problems of arable and crop production in Hohenheim, other places in Baden-Württemberg, but also in more distant regions of the world, including Turkey, Egypt, Sudan and China. Questions of tillage , green manure , weed control and nitrogen assimilation in organic farming were the focus of his studies. He paid particular attention to the last-mentioned problem areas, in particular with the leasing of a biodynamic test farm by the University of Hohenheim on the Swabian Alb (Ensmad) from 1973 to 1995 and with the management of an ecologically managed test farm, the Stoll VITA Foundation in Waldshut-Tiengen ( Flachshof) from 1997 to 2005.

In the field of agricultural tillage, Kahnt was soon recognized as an internationally recognized expert. From 1976 to 1979 he was President of ISTRO (International Soil Tillage Research Organization). After 1990, he primarily devoted himself to target-oriented stubble cultivation as a means of comprehensive weed control. In further research projects, Kahnt investigated questions of erosion reduction in the Kraichgau and examined the genetically determined yield potentials of renewable raw material plants (lignocellulose, oils, carbohydrates: including miscanthus , safflower , oil flax , Jerusalem artichoke ) at locations throughout Baden-Württemberg .

The results of his research work were reflected in over 250 publications, 140 diploma theses and 54 dissertations. Kahnt's main scientific works include the books " Ackerbau ohne Pflug " (1976), " Grününgung " (1980), " Biologischer Pflanzenbau " (1986) and " Minimal-Bodenverarbeitung " (1995). Of his numerous practice-oriented publications, the article published in 1997 in the journal “Landwirtschaft und Leben” deserves special mention: “ The preservation and promotion of soil fertility in organic farming - 50 agricultural recommendations that every farmer should know ”.

From 1978 onwards, Kahnt was the Senate Commissioner for the partnership between the University of Hohenheim and the Cukurova University Adana (Turkey) and, from 1984, involved in various research projects and lecture blocks in the partnerships between the University of Hohenheim, the Agricultural University of Peking and the University of Évora (Portugal).

honors and awards

• 1986 Honorary Professor of the Xinjiang Agricultural Academy, Urumqui, China
• 1990 Certificate of Honor and Gold Medal on Ribbon from Beijing Agricultural University
• 1994 Honorary Award of International Cooperation from Beijing Agricultural University
• 1995 Honorary Doctorate (Dr. hc) from the Agricultural University of Timișoara , Romania.
• 1995 State Medal in Gold from the Ministry of Food and Rural Areas of Baden-Württemberg

Major works (books and writings)

• Changes in the glucoside of o-oxycinnamic acid in the leaves of the white sweet clover (Melilotus albus) during the ontogenesis of the plant . Diss. Agr. Göttingen 1963. At the same time in: Angewandte Botanik Vol. 37, 1963, pp. 131–161.
• Growth-influencing effect of stereoisomeric cinnamic acid derivatives in mustard seedlings and three types of grain . Habil.-Schr. University of Hohenheim 1970. Also in: Work of the University of Hohenheim Vol. 52, 1970, Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart.
• Agriculture without a plow. Requirements, procedures and limits of direct sowing in grain crops . Verlag Eugen Ulmer Stuttgart 1976 = Ulmer reference book: Acker- und Pflanzenbau (also in Russian and Spanish).
• Green manure . DLG-Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1980; 2nd improved edition 1983 (also in Russian and Hungarian).
• Claude Aubert: Organic farming . Edited by Günter Kahnt. From the Franz. By Ingeborg Ulmer. Publishing house Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1981.
• Organic crop production. Possibilities and limits of organic cultivation systems . Verlag Eugen Ulmer Stuttgart 1986 (also in Russian).
• 20 years of Ensmad: biodynamic trial operation . Edited and edited by Günter Kahnt. University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim 1993.
• Minimal tillage (with the collaboration of Dr. Gabriele Gronbach). Publishing house Eugen Ulmer 1995.
• Legumes in conventional and organic farming . DLG-Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2008.

Other noteworthy publications

• Problems of organic farming, presented using the example of the biodynamic test farm at the University of Hohenheim in Ensmad, Swabian Alb, 1974–1987 . In: Reports of the Society for Crop Science Vol. 1, 1988, pp. 1-36.
• Preserving and promoting soil fertility in organic farming - 50 agricultural recommendations that every farmer should know . In: Agriculture and Life. Magazine for ecologically oriented farmers, gardeners and consumers . Published by the Study Center for Agroecology at the Research Institute for Alpine Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Innsbruck, double issue No. 3/4, 1997 (48 pages).
• What came from the fields - the development of agriculture . In: For the farmers in Baden-Württemberg. 50 years of the regional farmers' association . Stuttgart 1997, pp. 94-100.
• Organic farming - perspectives of plant production without N-mineral fertilizers and chemical-synthetic pesticides . In: Stoll VITA Foundation. Non-profit foundation promoting scientific research in public health and education. Festschrift for the 15th anniversary of the foundation 1985–2000 . Waldshut-Tiengen 2000, pp. 56-69.
• The Flachshof - a project of the Stoll VITA Foundation . In: Stoll VITA Foundation. Non-profit foundation promoting scientific research in public health and education. Festschrift for the 15th anniversary of the foundation 1985–2000 . Waldshut-Tiengen 2000, pp. 82-117.
• Fears - impressions - memories - praise and thanks . In: Recalling the History: CAU-UH Scientific Cooperation (1979–2004) - 25 years of partnership between Hohenheim University and Peking University of Agriculture . China Agricultural University Press o. O. (2005), pp. 160–167 (German) and pp. 168–172 (Chinese).

literature

• Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 2007. Bio-bibliographical directory of contemporary German-speaking scientists . 21st edition, KG Saur Verlag Munich 2007, Volume II, p. 1165.

Web links

• Literature by and about Günter Kahnt in the catalog of the German National Library