Manfred Dambroth

Manfred Dambroth (born June 19, 1935 in Wriezen ; † April 12, 1994 in Peine ) was a German crop scientist .

Life

Dambroth, the son of a farmer, attended the agricultural school in Witzenhausen after an agricultural apprenticeship and began studying at the agricultural faculty of the University of Göttingen in 1959 , which he completed after seven semesters with the examination to become a certified farmer . In 1963 he got a job as a research assistant at the Institute for Crop Production and Seed Research of the Federal Research Center for Agriculture (FAL) in Braunschweig -Völkenrode. From 1976 he headed this institute as professor and director. From 1986 to 1987 Manfred Dambroth was President of the FAL.

Research priorities

From the very beginning of his scientific activity, Dambroth has dealt with the effects of environmental factors and land management measures on the production of crops and the quality of their harvested products. These questions have been the subject of his doctoral thesis " The influence of the environment and cultivation measures on the specific resistance of potato tubers to mechanical stress ", with which he in 1967 Eduard von Boguslavsky at the University of Giessen doctorate was.

At the end of the 1970s, Dambroth played a key role in the development of research concepts for the cultivation of " renewable raw materials ". He saw in the cultivation of crops for the purpose of raw material and energy production a future-oriented possibility to reduce the surplus production of that time and at the same time to orientate the land management more according to ecological aspects. In cooperation with seed breeding companies and university institutes, the West German genebank for cultivated plants was considerably expanded under his leadership and later passed on to the Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben as part of the reunification . At his institute, numerous " alternative plants " were tested for their suitability for cultivation, new crop rotation systems were tested and processes for " conserving soil cultivation " were developed. For him, these activities were building blocks for his concept of " integrated land management ", a form of farming that not only focuses on the cultivation of crops, but also takes into account nature and environmental protection issues and landscape design.

With the results of his research work and the practice-oriented conclusions for future land management, Dambroth has made a considerable contribution to the ecological reorientation of agriculture in Germany. Through his vivid overview articles, through his close contacts to agricultural practice and through his work in numerous national and international organizations, he was also able to actively shape agricultural and scientific policy himself.

Fonts (selection)

• The position of tillage in the crop production system . In: Landbauforschung Völkenrode Vol. 25, 1975, pp. 11-16.
• Flax. Breeding, cultivation and processing (together with Reinhard Seehuber). Publisher Eugen Ulmer Stuttgart 1988.
• Integrated land management. Prerequisite for the stability of agricultural ecosystems . In: Communications from the Austrian Soil Science Society H. 42, 1990, pp. 11–37.
• Ecological considerations on industrial and energy crops . In: Landbauforschung Völkenrode vol. 43, 1993, pp. 77–82.

literature

• Mourning for Mr. Dir. U. Prof. Dr. agr. Manfred Dambroth . In: Communications and information from the Federal Agricultural Research Center Braunschweig-Völkenrode (FAL) No. 1, 1994, p. 20.
• Claus Sommer and Siegfried Schittenhelm: Manfred Dambroth † . In: Landbauforschung Völkenrode vol. 44, 1994, before p. 147 (with picture).