Gustav Kühn (agronomist)

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Gustav Kühn (born January 20, 1840 in Paris , † April 2, 1892 in Leipzig ) was a German agricultural chemist . His research focus was animal nutrition and feeding theory .

Live and act

Gustav Kühn was the son of a philologist who was arrested in 1824 for his activities as a fraternity member in Leipzig and who emigrated to Paris in 1826 after his release. In 1848 he returned to Leipzig with his family because he wanted to raise his two sons as good Germans. Gustav Kühn therefore attended the Sankt Nicolai-Gymnasium in Leipzig from Easter 1849 and passed the school leaving examination there in 1857 . He then studied natural sciences from the winter semester of 1857 at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen and from Easter 1860 in Greifswald , where he received his doctorate a year later ( on the effect of dry hydrogen chloride on hydrobenzamide at elevated temperatures ). In Greifswald he became a member of the Rugia fraternity .

From 1862 Kühn worked as a scientific assistant to the agricultural chemist Wilhelm Henneberg at the agricultural research station Weende near Göttingen. In 1866 he took over the management of the Agricultural Research Station in Braunschweig . From 1867 until his early death he headed the agricultural research station in Möckern near Leipzig, which under his aegis developed into a highly respected research facility.

Kühn's main area of ​​work was animal nutrition. The main focus of his experimental research activities included feeding experiments with domestic animals, questions about the digestibility of feed, the basics of fat formation in the animal body and the influence of different feeding methods on the milk production of cattle . He published the results of his experiments mainly in the journal Die agricultural experimental stations , in the journal for agriculture and in the Sächsische agricultural journal . In 1871 he was awarded the title of (extraordinary) professor and in 1877 the Saxon Order of Albrecht 1st class . In the summer of 1884 he was ordained professor and in 1892 appointed Privy Councilor. In 1891 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In Leipzig-Möckern was Gustav Kühn street named after him.

Publications (selection)

  • What does agricultural practice have to expect from the agricultural chemical test stations according to the current position taken by them? In: Journal für Landwirthschaft Vol. 14, 1866, pp. 114–123.
  • Experiments on the influence of changing diets on milk production as well as on the use of roughage (meadow hay) and changing it by adding easily digestible supplementary feed , by Gustav Kühn u. Moritz Fleischer, Chemnitz, 1869.
  • Experiments on the influence of nutrition on the milk production of cattle in the years 1870-1873 on the farm. Möckern experimental station , Göttingen, 1874.
  • G. Kühn and O. Neubert: Experiments on the digestibility of wheat bran and its change through different types of preparation and administration, as well as on the digestibility of meadow hay in dry and moist conditions . In: The agricultural experimental stations, Vol. 29, 1883, pp. 1-214.
  • Feeding experiments with green clover , by Gustav Kühn, 1888.

literature

  • F. Nobbe: Gustav Kühn † . In: Die agricultural experimental stations, Vol. 41, 1892, pp. 1-9 (with picture in front of p. 1 and list of publications).
  • Carl LeisewitzKühn, Gustav . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 428-430.
  • W. Böhm: Gustav Kühn , in Biographisches Handbuch zur Geschichte des Pflanzenbau , Munich 1997, pp. 172–173.