Johannes Görbing

Johannes Görbing (born June 28, 1877 in Weißensee , Province of Saxony, Prussia, † December 30, 1946 in Hamburg ) was a German pharmacist, soil scientist and agricultural physiologist.

Life

Apprenticeship and wandering years

The son of a teacher completed a practical apprenticeship as a pharmacist and studied at the University of Göttingen since 1900 . He attended lectures on chemistry, physics, botany and bacteriology. In 1902 he passed the pharmaceutical state examination with distinction. In 1903 he also passed his exams as a food chemist. After working for two years at a food investigation office in Berlin, at the test station of the Chamber of Agriculture in Danzig and at the State Hygiene Institute in Hamburg, he took over the management of the scientific test station for biological wastewater treatment of the Hamburg state in 1905.

In 1907 Görbing went on a study trip to the United States of America. In 1908 he became head of department in a commercial laboratory in Hamburg, where he was mainly concerned with the analysis of tropical feed and food. During the First World War he was first employed as a pharmacist in the western theater of war, later as a hygienist in the Near East. On his extended inspection trips he became more and more interested in the agricultural problems of farmers.

The way to become an agricultural adviser

After the First World War, Görbing devoted himself entirely to soil science advice and research. In 1919 he founded a private agricultural research laboratory in Hamburg-Groß Borstel , which he relocated to a new building he built in 1926 as the “Research Institute for Soil Science and Plant Nutrition” in Rellingen near Pinneberg. He developed the “ spade diagnosis ”, a simple method that every farmer could use to assess the “state of fermentation ” of his soil. Görbing, who in some of his writings referred to himself as an "agricultural physiologist", conducted successful agricultural consultations in all German provinces for over twenty years. He played a decisive role in the fact that Franz Sekera founded a " Reichsbodengesundheitsdienst " in 1943 .

Görbing has published the results of his research and the experience of his consulting activities in numerous journal articles and in several independent publications. His two-volume main work “The Basics of Gare in Practical Agriculture” did not appear until 1948, two years after his death. In the first volume, which also contains some information on his biography, Görbing describes in detail the spade diagnosis and his “gare concept”. He recommends that farmers use appropriate lime fertilization, organic cultivation and biologically appropriate soil cultivation in order to create optimal soil quality. The second volume contains around 200 photos on the methodology of the spade diagnosis and the assessment criteria of the cooked soil. For decades, the book has been one of the classic works in the field of ecologically oriented arable and crop production.

Fonts (selection)

• Final lime. An overview and critical study . Scientific publishing house W. Gente Hamburg 1919.
• The lime question, a fundamental and vital question for Germany's resurgence and Denmark's example . Kalkverlag Berlin 1922.
• The lime issue in the context of applied soil science and artificial fertilizer management . Scientific publishing house W.Gente Hamburg 1925.
• Soil reaction and limestone condition, their importance for plant growth . Kalkverlag Berlin 1926.
• The basics of Gare in practical agriculture . 2 volumes. Landbuch-Verlag Hannover 1948.

literature

• Fritz Engelien: In memory of Johannes Görbing! In: Land, Wald und Garten. Monthly journal for agriculture and forestry, fruit growing and horticulture Vol. 3, 1948, p. 257.
• Karl Siebert: What does Görbing's life's work teach us? In: Neue Mitteilungen für die Landwirtschaft Vol. 3, 1948, pp. 366–367.
• Ernst Gustav Doerell: Our cultivated soils under consideration by Johannes Görbing . In: Reports on Landtechnik H. 4, 1948, pp. 103-108.

Web links

• Stadtmuseum-Pinneberg, permanent exhibition in Görbing