Knud Caesar

Knud Caesar

Knud Caesar (born May 24, 1925 in Steinsdorf , Guben District , Brandenburg Province , Free State of Prussia ) is a German crop scientist . From 1967 to 1988 he taught as a professor for tropical and subtropical crop production in the Department of International Agricultural Development at the Technical University of Berlin .

Life path

Knud Caesar, son of a farmer ( domain tenant ), attended a boarding school in Schwarzburg ( Thuringia ) and from 1939 the knight academy in Brandenburg an der Havel before he was drafted into the armed forces in 1943. In 1945 he began an agricultural apprenticeship and from 1947 he studied at the Hohenheim Agricultural University . During his studies he already worked as a working student at the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding at this university. After graduating in 1950, he got a job there as a research assistant. In this function he coordinated the work of the scientists on the test field and supervised field tests. In 1954 he received his doctorate under the aegis of Walther Brouwer with a dissertation on the cultivation of winter catch crops .

In 1957 Caesar traveled to Iraq and, together with other German and American scientists, set up the College of Agriculture in Abu Ghuraib . He was appointed Professor of Field Crops there. He set up a trial field and began field trials under irrigation conditions. In 1959 he returned to Germany and became a research assistant and head of the test field at the Max Planck Institute for Breeding Research Rosenhof near Ladenburg . In 1962 he went to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) as an agricultural advisor with the task of examining the possibilities for growing potatoes on this tropical island. With the necessary field tests, he laid the foundations for his later habilitation thesis . At the same time he was a visiting professor at the University of Peradeniya Agricultural Faculty .

In 1966 Caesar completed his habilitation at the Institute for Plant Production and Plant Breeding at the University of Göttingen , headed by Arnold Scheibe , with a thesis on the cultivation of potatoes in lower latitudes. In 1967 he accepted the call to the Faculty of Agriculture at the Technical University of Berlin and took over the professorship for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture. Until his retirement in 1988, he was dean for several terms , worked on various university committees and played a key role in converting the faculty into a department for international agricultural development.

From the 1990s onwards, Caesar was heavily involved in the preservation of the Brandenburg Cathedral . He belongs to the Brandenburg Cathedral Chapter . The Friends of Brandenburg Cathedral e. V. appointed him honorary chairman on the occasion of his 85th birthday. From 1982 to 1985 he was a board member of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom . He was also a member of the Board of Trustees from 1974 to 1978 and the Advisory Board of the Foundation from 1974 to 1985. From 1974 to 1986 he was chairman of the foundation's selection committee for the support of talented students.

Research and Teaching

Building on the research work in Iraq and Sri Lanka, Caesar continued to concentrate in Berlin on agro-ecological issues such as the photoperiodic reaction of plants , salt tolerance and variety-specific properties of potatoes and grain legumes . Corresponding tests were not only carried out under controlled conditions in Berlin, but also in cooperation with specialist colleagues from the European Society for Potato Research (EAPR) and at international and national research institutes in tropical and subtropical areas. Due to his international experience and contacts, Caesar received numerous assignments as an expert and advisor to national and international institutions. He was a contact scientist for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan / Nigeria and the International Potatoe Center (CIP) in Lima / Peru , advisor to the International Foundation for Science (IFS) in Stockholm / Sweden , and visiting professor in Trinidad / West India , Alexandria / Egypt and Maimansingh / Bangladesh .

Caesar was a member of numerous national and international scientific societies, such as 1985 to 1988 President of the International Society of Tropical Root Crops (ISTRC) and 1985 to 1987 Chairman of the Society for Crop Science . After his retirement he was one of the members of the founding senate of the University for Sustainable Development Eberswalde , where he headed more than twenty appointment commissions and was elected first honorary senator .

During his active time as a university lecturer, Caesar was particularly keen to pass on knowledge and experience in plant cultivation to students and doctoral candidates. In addition to publishing the research results in specialist journals, he is also the author of articles in textbooks and handbooks. The textbook "Introduction to tropical and subtropical plant cultivation" which he published in 1986 with the collaboration of numerous specialist colleagues is noteworthy . Special mention should be made of his educational activities in helping to shape the "International Agricultural Development" course and the postgraduate "Seminar for Agricultural Development" at the Technical University of Berlin.

Important publications

• Comparative studies on winter catch crops . Diss. Agr. Hochsch. Hohenheim 1954. - Zugl. in: Zeitschrift für Acker- und Pflanzenbau Vol. 98, 1954, pp. 471–504.
• Possibilities and limits of sugar beet cultivation in Iraq . In: Zeitschrift für Acker- und Pflanzenbau Vol. 111, 1960, pp. 404-426.
• Ecological problems in the cultivation of potatoes in lower latitudes with special consideration of the conditions in Ceylon . Habil.-Schr. Agricultural Faculty Univ. Göttingen 1966. - Zugl .: Verlag Mann Hildesheim 1967 = booklets for potato growing, booklet 14.
• The distribution of cultivated plants in the climatic zones of the earth . In: Umschau in Wissenschaft und Technik Vol. 68, 1968, pp. 391–397.
• Possibilities of introducing new crops in the tropics and subtropics . In: Journal for Foreign Agriculture . Vol. 8, 1969, pp. 260-272.
• The potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) (by W. Brouwer and K. Caesar). In: Walther Brouwer: Handbook of special plant cultivation in two volumes . Verlag Paul Parey Berlin and Hamburg, Vol. 2, 1976, pp. 1–187.
• Introduction to tropical and subtropical plant cultivation (with the collaboration of W. Achtnich and other specialist colleagues). DLG-Verlag Frankfurt (Main) 1986.
• Lines of Development in Plant Cultivation Research. Symposium on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Professor Dr. Paul Limberg . Published by Knud Caesar. Series of publications by the Department of International Agricultural Development (FIA) Technical University Berlin 1987, No. 106.
• Developments in crop research for the Third World : In: Ambio , Special Issue: Science of Sustainable Development Vol. XIX, No. 8, 1990, pp. 353-357.

literature

• K.-U. Heyland: Laudation for Professor Dr. Knud Caesar on the occasion of his departure from the TU Berlin . In: Günter Krzysch (Ed.): Plant cultivation research for developing countries . Symposium on the occasion of the farewell to Professor Dr. Knud Caesar from active service at the Technical University of Berlin on February 17, 1989. TU - FIA, Berlin 1990, ( Technical University Berlin, series of publications by the Department of International Agricultural Development (FIA) 127, ISSN  0177-6673 ).
• Harry Knittel: Knud Caesar . In: Harry Knittel (Hrsg.): Society for Crop Science 1956–2006. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary . Published on behalf of the board. Society for Crop Science, Kiel 2007, ISBN 978-3-926775-51-1 , pp. 50–51 (with picture).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Benno Rougk: Piano Concerto for Domretter in: Märkische Allgemeine , 9-10. May 2015, p. 12. Accessed November 19, 2015 .
2. ^ Website of the Brandenburger Domstifts, accessed on April 17, 2015 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Knud Caesar in the catalog of the German National Library