Karl Isenbeck

Karl Isenbeck (born April 11, 1904 in Wiescherhöfen near Hamm , † January 24, 1945 on the Hellau experimental estate near Posen ) was a German plant breeding scientist . Most of his research is characterized by a close connection between plant breeding , phytomedicine and plant cultivation .

Life

Karl Isenbeck, son of the farmer Friedrich Isenbeck and his wife Selinda Standop, attended secondary school in Hamm , passed his Abitur there in 1923 and then completed an agricultural apprenticeship on a seed farm. From 1925 he studied agriculture , first at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster , and from 1926 at the University of Halle (Saale) . After the diploma exam (1928) he stayed in Halle and in 1929 got a job as an assistant at the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding headed by Theodor Roemer . In 1930 he received his doctorate in natural sciences with a dissertation in the field of immunity breeding .

In 1930/31 Isenbeck was an exchange assistant at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul (USA). Here he gained extensive insights into the field of phytomedicine from the phytopathologist EC Sakmann , which had a lasting impact on his later research activities. After his return from the USA, Isenbeck received a scheduled assistant position at the seed breeding station at the University of Halle. In 1937 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on the resistance of summer gesture varieties. As a private lecturer at the Roemer Institute he held lectures on “General Plant Breeding”, “Correlation and Error Calculation in Agriculture” and “Climate and Yield Security” until 1939.

In 1940 Isenbeck was appointed professor and director of the Reich Research Institute for Alpine Agriculture in Admont / Styria and was entrusted with the management of a newly established institute for crop production. However, he was only able to manage the establishment of this research facility on site for a few months. In 1942 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a military administrator . A few weeks before the end of the Second World War he was killed in fighting on the Hellau experimental farm near Posen.

At the University of Halle, Isenbeck developed a system of the varieties of self-pollinating crops , especially grain, through annual observations in breeding gardens , and examined the physiological specialization of plant pathogens. This activity was crowned by his co-authorship of the joint work published in 1938 (with Theodor Roemer and Walter Heinrich Fuchs) "The Breeding of Resistant Races of Cultivated Plants" . Isenbeck wrote several overview articles for the "Handbuch der Pflanzenzüchtung" published by Paul Parey Verlag in Berlin , including on barley and wheat breeding. In scientific journals he published articles on the drought resistance of wheat, on quality issues in grain and on current problems in plant cultivation research .

Main publications

• Investigations on Helminthosporium gramineum Rabh. in the context of immunity breeding . Natural science Diss. Univ. Hall 1930. - Zugl. in: Phytopathologische Zeitschrift Vol. 2, 1930, pp. 503-555.
• The significance of the factors temperature and light for the question of the shift in resistance in various spring barley to Helminthosporium gramineum . Natural science Habil.-Schr. Univ. Halle 1937. - Zugl. in: Kühn Archive Vol. 44, 1937, 1-54.
• Theodor Roemer, Walter Heinrich Fuchs and Karl Isenbeck: The breeding of resistant races of cultivated plants . Published by Paul Parey Berlin 1938.
• Observations, experiences and thoughts on the drought resistance of wheat as a breeding problem . In: Pflanzenbau Vol. 14, 1938, pp. 401-426.
• The development of the quality concept in agricultural plant breeding . In: Kühn Archive Vol. 50, 1938, pp. 275-314.
• Can good quality and yield be combined? In: Der Forschungsdienst, special issue 14, 1941, 44–51.
• Several articles in the manual of plant breeding . Verlag Paul Parey Berlin, Vol. 1, 1941 and Vol. 2, 1950. - The extensive article Die Züchtung des Weizen (together with Klaus von Rosenstiel ), first published in Vol. 2, was published in 1950 by Paul Parey as a separate book edition.

literature

• Th. Roemer: Professor Dr. Karl Isenbeck † . In: Journal for Plant Breeding Vol. 28, 1949, pp. 91-92 (with list of publications).
• G. Röbbelen: Karl Isenbeck, breeding researcher and plant breeder . In: Biographical lexicon on the history of plant breeding. Edited by Gerhard Röbbelen, 2nd volume, Göttingen 2002, pp. 143-144 (with list of publications). Published as issue 55 of the lectures for plant breeding .
• Henrik Eberle: The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism. Mdv, Halle 2002, ISBN 3-89812-150-X , p. 418

Web links

• Entry on Karl Isenbeck in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis