Joachim Garz

Joachim Garz

Joachim Garz (born April 27, 1930 in Calbe an der Saale ; † March 8, 2016 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German agricultural scientist in the field of plant nutrition and fertilization . From 1966 to 1995 he worked as a university professor at the agricultural faculty of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1948, Joachim Garz, son of an agricultural consultant, began a two-year agricultural apprenticeship , the first year in the Altmark and the second in the Magdeburger Börde . From 1950 he studied agriculture at the University of Halle . In 1953 he passed the exam to become a qualified farmer . He then worked as a doctoral student with Karl Schmalfuß at the Institute for Plant Nutrition and Soil Science and received his doctorate in 1957 at the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Halle with a dissertation on the possible influence of fertilization on the phosphate content of alfalfa . In 1963 he completed his habilitation in Halle with a paper on the amount, distribution and binding forms of minerals in the seeds of legumes .

Garz remained connected with the agricultural faculty of the University of Halle for a lifetime. After several years of teaching as part of a distance learning course in agriculture , he was appointed lecturer for soil science and plant nutrition in 1966 . In 1981 he was appointed full professor for fertilization . He worked in this function until he retired in 1995.

Research and Teaching

The central research and teaching area of ​​Joachim Garz was the fertilization of agricultural crops . The wide range of experience gained during his assistant years in the design and implementation of fertilization tests and his practice-oriented evaluation of the test data were decisive in the fact that in 1974 he was entrusted with the management of a teaching and research collective on the field of fertilization .

Outstanding research objects were the testing ground of in this 1878 Julius Kühn and 1949 by Karl Schmalfuß -scale fatigue tests . Together with his colleague Hermann Stumpe and several doctoral students, Garz supervised the continuous fertilization experiment "Ewiger Roggenbau" founded by Julius Kühn, and was able to gain new insights into the stability of organic matter and nitrogen turnover in the soil . His test results confirmed the need to continue this long-term test and similar long-term tests , both as test objects for contemporary models of carbon and nitrogen turnover in soils and plants and for environmental research (effects of long-term agrochemical measures on the environmental compartments of soil, water and air).

Garz later supplemented his studies of the nitrogen turnover based on balance sheets in this endurance test with field studies of nitrate formation and nitrate displacement at pedologically different locations in Central Germany . Through accompanying root observations and investigations into the movement of the soil water , he was able to develop concrete fertilization recommendations that were successfully applied in agricultural practice and were widely accepted.

In addition to the experiments to exploit the optimal yield potential through targeted nitrogen fertilization , Garz and his working group also investigated the problem of nitrogen accumulation in the subsoil of many loess soils in the 1980s and 1990s . In agreement with the experimental results of other researchers, he also took the view that it must be the duty of farmers to significantly reduce the environmentally harmful nitrate discharge in the soil through appropriate management measures.

From the results of long-term fertilization tests, Garz was also able to balance the phosphate turnover in arable soils and clearly demonstrate that the then widespread doctrine that the use of fertilizer phosphorus (fertilizer P) was less than 20% could not be correct. According to his balances, with fertilization based on P-withdrawal, almost complete utilization of the P-fertilizer by the cultivated crops was to be expected in the long term. This knowledge was of immense importance for the practice of P-fertilization.

As an agricultural scientist, Garz has always endeavored to trace problems in plant cultivation practice back to their scientific foundations, to develop suitable solution strategies, to test them in field tests and to implement the knowledge gained in suitable fertilization recommendations for agriculture. Garz supervised 30 doctoral students. As a university professor, he paid particular attention to the content of exercises and excursions. They were always designed to be interdisciplinary and focused on current issues in agricultural practice.

Publications (selection)

• For knowledge of the phosphate diet of alfalfa . Diss. Agricultural Faculty Halle 1957. Typescript. - Zugl. in: Journal of Plant Nutrition, Fertilization, Bodenkunde Vol. 79, 1957, pp. 213–232.
• Amount, distribution and binding form of the minerals (P, K, Mg and Ca) in the legume seeds depending on the nutrient redistribution within the plant and the nutritional conditions . Habilitation thesis Agricultural Faculty Halle 1963 [1964]. - Zugl. in: Kühn-Archiv Vol. 80, 1963, pp. 137-194.
• Differences in the nitrogen supply of the grain caused by previous crops and the possibility of their detection by determining the inorganic soil nitrogen (together with H. Stumpe). In: Archive for arable and plant cultivation and soil science, Vol. 18, 1974, pp. 737–746.
• Investigations into the phosphate balance of the arable soils in long-term continuous fertilization tests on sand and sand loam brown black earth (together with W. Einicke and O. Hagemann). In: Archives for arable and plant cultivation and soil science, Vol. 20, 1976, pp. 477-487.
• Possible applications of soil analysis in connection with the calculation of optimal nitrogen fertilizer applications (together with H. Stumpe). In: Archives for arable and plant cultivation and soil science, Vol. 21, 1977, pp. 221–230.
• 100th anniversary of the "Ewiger Roggenbau" attempt in Halle . In: Archives for arable and plant cultivation and soil science, Vol. 23, 1979, pp. 563-571.
• The experiment "Ewiger Roggenbau" founded by Julius Kühn in Halle after 11 decades . In: Kühn-Archiv Vol. 86, 1992, pp. 1-8.
• The root development of sugar beet plants on a loess site and its importance for nitrogen nutrition (together with M. Abdalla and W. Schliephake). In: Journal of Agronomy & Crop Science Vol. 169, 1992, pp. 260-269.
• Effect of phosphate fertilization in a 40-year long-term test on sand-loam-brown-black soil in Halle (together with H. Stumpe and H. Scharf). In: Journal for Plant Nutrition and Soil Science Vol. 157, 1994, pp. 105-110.
• On the nitrogen turnover in the "Ewiger Roggenbau" long-term experiment in Halle (together with H. Stumpe). In: Kühn Archive Vol. 91, 1997, pp. 1-8.
• The indispensability and limits of continuous fertilization trials - a look at the trial field in Halle (together with W. Schliephake and H. Stumpe). In: Archive for arable and plant cultivation and soil science, Vol. 42, 1997, pp. 319–334.

literature

• Hermann Stumpe: Prof. Garz (Halle) on his 70th birthday . In: Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science Vol. 163, 2000, separate supplement in Volume 3, pp. II-III = communications from the German Society for Plant Nutrition.

Web links

• Literature by and about Joachim Garz in the catalog of the German National Library