Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research

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Institute name above the entrance of the former main building of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research

The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research was founded in Müncheberg in 1928 by the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Promotion of Science . The main task of the institute was practically relevant and application-oriented research in the field of cultivated plants; One focus was on the field of fruit growing research and variety breeding. After the Second World War, part of the institute was relocated to the western zone of occupation, where it was ultimately continued as the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research , today the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research . In the GDR, the institute became the Central Research Institute for Plant Breeding .

History of the institute

founding

Geneticist Erwin Baur initiated the establishment of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research . The idea was supported by the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Obstzüchtung, which saw a specialized breeding institute as an opportunity to strengthen German agriculture.

In 1927 the decision was made to found the institute, the official founding took place on September 29, 1928. The Institute for Breeding Research was the first institute in the field of agricultural research founded by the Kaiser Wilhelm Society itself. The Entomological Institute in Berlin-Dahlem, which was taken over by the Society in 1922 and researched pests in agriculture and forestry, was founded as the National Entomological Museum in 1886. At the Institute for Breeding Research, the aim was above all to work on practically relevant and exploitation-oriented research questions that were too time-consuming and tedious for private, commercial plant breeding. Important goals were to increase the yield of crops and to develop new varieties that are resistant to diseases and unfavorable climatic conditions.

Choice of location

During the previous centuries, particularly severe winters had caused major damage to fruit growing through heavy frosts at regular intervals. In some particularly severe winters, several million fruit trees each died. The economic damage concerned not only the loss of the trees, but also the multi-year crop failure in the following years, until newly planted trees showed the first larger yields. A major focus of fruit breeding at the beginning of the 20th century was therefore on the selection of particularly frost-resistant varieties. While robust land races often showed good resistance to frost effects, but their fruits were qualitatively unsuitable as table fruit, the more noble table fruit varieties, mostly imported from France or England, showed a high sensitivity to frost. Targeted breeding programs should be carried out at the new institute in order to supply local fruit growing with high-quality and resistant fruit varieties.

Since the extreme winters only occur every 20 to 50 years, a Weiser location was sought for the newly founded breeding institute as far east as possible, and thus as exposed to the Eurasian continental climate as possible, so that the plants to be selected are often exposed to adverse weather conditions for fruit growing. In particular, to expose to strong frosts in winter and longer dry periods in summer and thus to be able to carry out a selection under natural conditions within a few years. Another criterion was the presence of different soil types in the smallest possible space in order to be able to examine the influence of soil quality on the newly grown varieties. The choice of location finally fell on Müncheberg, as both the climatic and soil conditions were favorable here and there was also a good infrastructural connection to the Reich capital Berlin. In Müncheberg, Erwin Baur, the first director of the institute, had been running the Brigittenhof since 1920, near which a separate institute building was built for the new Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research.

The institute in the time of National Socialism and World War II

In the time of National Socialism, plant breeding research was given a special status, as it was hoped that it would make an important contribution to increasing the yield of German agriculture and thus to achieving the desired food self-sufficiency. As early as 1933 a branch was founded in Klein-Blumenau in East Prussia ; Another branch followed in 1938 at the Rosenhof near Heidelberg and in 1939 a branch in Klagenfurt .

Erwin Baur died in 1933, the management of the institute was initially transferred on an interim basis to the NSDAP-compliant Bernhard Husfeld , who was replaced by Wilhelm Rudorf as the new institute director in the spring of 1936 .

In 1938 the institute was named Erwin Baur Institute in honor of its founder. In 1942 the previous department for grapevine breeding at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research was converted into its own institute for grapevine breeding, which initially remained in Müncheberg. It was later moved to the Rosenhof in Heidelberg. During the Second World War, research at the institute was greatly reduced, but not completely stopped.

The institute in the period after the Second World War

In April 1945, shortly before the end of the war, Wilhelm Rudorf succeeded in bringing large parts of the inventory and breeding material to northern Germany. Here he initially ran the institute on a makeshift basis under the old name of Erwin-Baur-Institut on the Heitlingen estate near Hanover. As early as the end of 1945, Rudorf's institute was relocated to two new locations, one part was relocated to Voldagsen near Hameln, another to Neustadt am Rübenberge . In 1951, the institute was integrated into the Max Planck Society and has since continued under the name Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research, with the Erwin Baur Institute added to the name until the 1990s. In 1955 the institute moved to the leased Vogelsang town estate near Kön, on whose premises new institute buildings were erected. The Rosenhof branch near Heidelberg initially remained affiliated with the institute until the independent Max Planck Institute for Plant Genetics was founded from it in 1960. In 2009 the Cologne institute was finally renamed the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research.

The institute was also continued at the original Müncheberg site under the name Erwin-Baur-Institut. From 1946, fruit growing research in Müncheberg was reoriented, initially under the Soviet military administration , then in the GDR. In the GDR, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research became the Central Research Institute for Plant Breeding .

In the 1970s, the GDR's breeding research was centralized in Dresden Pillnitz, which is why the Müncheberg fruit breeding department was attached to the Institute for Fruit Growing at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the GDR in Dresden-Pillnitz, which was then renamed the Institute for Fruit Research . In Müncheberg, breeding research for the apple and cherry fruit species continued until 1989, for which several hundred to a thousand crosses were carried out every year. In addition, the performance tests for the various types of fruit as well as for wood roots were carried out here.

With the establishment of the Federal Institute for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants (BAZ) in Dresden-Pillnitz in 1999, breeding research in Müncheberg was finally given up and the station assigned to the State of Brandenburg. In 2013, the processing of horticultural research topics within the Agriculture Department was discontinued. The Brandenburg Ministry of Infrastructure and Agriculture handed over the Müncheberg fruit growing test station to the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) , which it has been sponsoring ever since.

Focus of work

The institute worked primarily in the field of fruit-growing research, with fruit growing in particular being an important research focus. This was initially started by BR Nebel in Müncheberg. From 1929 Carl Friedrich Rudloff took over this area of ​​responsibility. After Rudloff was appointed to Geisenheim in 1934, his colleague Martin Schmidt continued the work. After Schmidt's death in 1955, fruit growing was continued by Heinz Murawski.

A clear focus was on cultivar and resistance breeding for the apple and plum fruit types as well as rootstock breeding for cherries. For this purpose, large collections of apples, pears, peaches, sweet cherries, apricots, plums and vines were created at the institute in the 1930s. Work was also carried out on new varieties for soft fruit and vines. As early as 1930, a separate department for berry fruit cultivation was founded at the institute, headed by F. Gruber. After the Second World War this was merged with the department for pome and stone fruit cultivation. At the beginning of the 1960s, however, the work with bushberry fruit was given up.

When breeding apple varieties, cross-breeding trials were carried out in the first few years between high-quality table fruit varieties and particularly frost-hardy but qualitatively less valuable local varieties. Since the results were unsatisfactory, the company switched to using only combination crosses with high-quality and high-yielding varieties for further breeding. In addition to frost hardiness and disease resistance, important breeding goals were also increasing the quality of the fruit, the yield and the suitability for cultivation on low-trunk stock.

Fruit varieties grown at the institute

In the course of its history, numerous pome, stone and soft fruit varieties were bred at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research and the successor institutes of the GDR.

Apple cultivations of the institute

The widespread apple variety 'Alkmene' is one of the first cultivars of the Müncheberg Institute
  • ' Alkmene ' ('Cox Orangenrenette' x 'Privy Councilor Dr. Oldenburg') (1930)
  • ' Auralia ' ('Cox Cox Orangenrenette' × 'Schöner aus Nordhausen')
  • ' Carola ' (1962)
  • ' Elektra ' ('Cox Orangenrenette' × 'Privy Councilor Dr. Oldenburg')
  • 'Herma'
  • ' Erwin Baur ' ('Privy Councilor Dr. Oldenburg' x?)
  • 'Olivia'
  • 'Undine' (freely blossomed 'Jonathan') (around 1930)

Plum varieties

  • 'July plum' (hexaploid)
  • 'Certina'
  • 'Fertilia'
  • 'Anatolia'

Strawberries

  • 'Müncheberger Morning'
  • 'Müncheberger early harvest'
  • 'Brandenburg'

Known employees

Directors

  • Erwin Baur , director of the institute from its founding in 1928 until his death in 1933
  • Bernhard Husfeld provisional institute director from 1933
  • Wilhelm Rudorf , institute director from 1936, after the end of the war director of the Erwin Baur Institute, which was rebuilt near Hanover
  • Walther Hertzsch - Head of the East Prussia branch of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research, during the Second World War consultant for research and agricultural technical schools at the Reichskommissariat Ostland

Head of department and research assistant

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Hilmar Schwärzel: Müncheberg as a Weiser site for fruit-growing crops. In: Landesverband Gartenbau Brandenburg eV (Hrsg.): Berlin-Brandenburgische horticultural communications. Reprint: Fruit growing in Brandenburg - Research for fruit growing in Müncheberg. 2010, pp. 5-8
  2. ^ Susanne Heim, Hildegard Kaulen: Müncheberg - Cologne - The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. In: Peter Gruss, Reinhard Rürup, Susanne Kiewitz: Denkorte. Max Planck Society and Kaiser Wilhelm Society: Breaks and Continuities 1911-2011. Sandstein Kommunikation, 2010 pp. 348–358
  3. ↑ Susanne Heim: Calories, Rubber, Careers: Plant Breeding and Agricultural Research in Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, 1933-1945. Susanne Heim Wallstein Verlag, 2003, p. 10
  4. ↑ Susanne Heim: Calories, Rubber, Careers: Plant Breeding and Agricultural Research in Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, 1933-1945. Wallstein Verlag, 2003, pp. 10/11/13
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Susanne Heim, Hildegard Kaulen: Müncheberg - Cologne - The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. In: Peter Gruss, Reinhard Rürup, Susanne Kiewitz (eds.): Places of thought - Max Planck Society and Kaiser Wilhelm Society - Breaks and Continuities, 1911–2011. Sandstein-Verlag and Max Planck Society, Dresden 2011 pp. 348–358
  6. ↑ Susanne Heim: Calories, Rubber, Careers: Plant Breeding and Agricultural Research in Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, 1933-1945. Susanne Heim Wallstein Verlag, 2003, p. 16
  7. ↑ Susanne Heim: Calories, Rubber, Careers: Plant Breeding and Agricultural Research in Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, 1933-1945. Susanne Heim Wallstein Verlag, 2003, p. 11
  8. ↑ Timeline of the history of horticultural teaching and research in Dresden-Pillnitz. ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of the Association of former Dresden-Pillnitzer eV, accessed on February 28, 2016  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dresden-pillnitzer.de
  9. ↑ State Office for Rural Development, Agriculture and Land Management (LELF), Brandenburg: Annual Agriculture Report 2013 ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / lelf.brandenburg.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Preface, accessed February 28, 2016
  10. ↑ a b c d Heinz Murawski: Institute for Arable and Plant Cultivation Müncheberg (Mark) of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin - 40 years of fruit growing in Müncheberg. In: Archives for Horticulture. XVI. Volume, Issue 5, Verlag Eugen Ulmer 1968, pp. 400-430
  11. ^ A b Rudolf Maier: From the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Crop Plant Research in the Vivarium (Vienna) and at Tuttenhof near Korneuburg (Lower Austria) to the Leibniz Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben (FRG). In: Writings Association for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge. 142, 2008, pp. 43-82
  12. ↑ Martin Schmidt: The fruit growing department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Müncheberg in the Mark. In: The German fruit, vegetable and food trade. May 5, 1934, reproduced in: Landesverband Gartenbau Brandenburg eV (Hrsg.): Berlin-Brandenburgische Gartenbaumitteilungen. Reprint: Fruit growing in Brandenburg - Research for fruit growing in Müncheberg. 2010, p. 4/5