Josef Knoll

This article deals with the crop scientist Josef Knoll. For other people with the name Josef Knoll see Josef Knoll (disambiguation) .

Josef Gabriel Knoll (born June 26, 1899 in Ulm - Söflingen ; † September 12, 1976 there , mostly Josef G. Knoll ) was a German crop scientist . His teaching and research focus were grassland management , forage production and agriculture in the tropics and subtropics .

Life

Josef Gabriel Knoll, son of a farmer, in 1921 began studying agriculture at the Technical University in Munich and laid 1924 at the Agricultural University of Hohenheim his diploma examination . In 1921 he became a member of the Catholic student association KDSt.V. Carolingia Hohenheim. In 1926 he received his doctorate in Hohenheim with a dissertation on the plant population of the meadows in the vicinity of Ulm. After completing his doctorate, he stayed in Hohenheim as a research assistant. In 1932 he completed his habilitation there with a plant-sociological paper on the species on southern German grassland and received the Venia legendi for the field of arable and crop production .

Until 1936 Knoll worked as a private lecturer in the grassland department of the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding in Hohenheim . He also dealt with the systematic mapping of permanent grassland on locations in southern Germany, but also with the breeding of grasses and with current problems with the cultivation of forage plants . In 1937 he accepted a call as a full professor at the University of Leipzig . Here he headed the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding until 1945. His research focus during this time was the cultivation of grass seeds and legumes . From 1941 to 1945 he published the series "Der Futtersaatbau".

After the Second World War, Knoll initially worked as a plant breeding consultant and head of a seed testing center. In 1947 he was commissioned by the Hessian Ministry of Agriculture to found and set up the state teaching and research institute for grassland farming and forage production in Wehrda (Haunetal) . In 1948 he took over as director of the research and advisory institute for high altitude agriculture in Donaueschingen . From here he and his employees carried out agro-ecological and business studies on a village basis throughout Baden-Württemberg, the results of which he put together in maps. This enabled him to clearly determine the optimal locations for agricultural production and to show interrelationships between natural cultivation factors and economic conditions.

In 1954, Knoll took over the position of director of the plant production and plant protection department at the FAO headquarters in Rome . In this role he played a major role in supplying developing countries with high-quality seeds and in setting up an agricultural advisory service there. In 1961 he returned to Hohenheim. The Agricultural University appointed him to the newly established Chair for Foreign Agriculture . The institute he had built up until his retirement became the nucleus of the later Hohenheim Center for Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics.

On August 6, 1960, Knoll was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit. The Eiselen Foundation Ulm has awarded the Josef G. Knoll Science Prize every two years since 1986. It is awarded for outstanding dissertations that provide new insights into improving world nutrition. The prize is currently endowed with € 30,000.

Works

• The plant population of the permanent meadows in the area around Ulm with special consideration of the predominant grass species . Diss. Agricultural University of Hohenheim 1926.
• The plant population of the southern German grassland I. The meadow types of the Württemberg lowlands . Habil.-Schr. Hohenheim University of Applied Sciences 1932 = work of the German Agricultural Society H. 386, 1932.
• Forage cultivation. Concentrated and juice feed production from arable land . Verlag Eugen Ulmer Stuttgart 1935 = writings on modern agriculture H. 4.
• Means and ways to increase the yield of the grassland . Work of the Leipzig Economic Society , Leipzig 1937.
• Alfalfa or alfalfa? . A joint work of the research service of JG Knoll and others - published by the Reichsverband der Pflanzenzucht, Berlin 1943. Zugl. in: Der Futtersaatbau Vol. 2, 1943, H. 5.
• About the distribution of meadow types to natural growth areas and terrain forms (together with Werner Krause). Archive of the Scientific Society for Agriculture and Forestry Freiburg i. Br., Special issue, Freiburg i. Br. 1951.
• Environment, feed and performance. A critical look at the forage industry in South Baden . Donau-Post-Verlag Donaueschingen 1953 = Wartenberg issue No. 1.

literature

• Professor Dr. Josef G. Knoll 65 years old . Press release of June 15, 1964 from the information and press office of the Hohenheim Agricultural University (typescript, 4 pages).
• Eberhard Schulze: The agricultural sciences at the University of Leipzig 1740-1945 . Evangelische Verlagsanstalt Leipzig 2006 = Contributions to Leipzig University and Science History, Series B, Vol. 10, 2006 (Josef Knoll et al on pp. 224–227).
• Frank Raberg : Biographical Lexicon for Ulm and Neu-Ulm 1802-2009 . Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft im Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-8040-3 , p. 209 .

Web links

• Josef Knoll in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
• Josef G. Knoll Science Prize

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Office of the Federal President