Manfred Seiffert

Manfred Seiffert

Manfred Seiffert (born July 25, 1924 in Bibra (near Jena) , † November 26, 2004 in Rostock ) was a German crop scientist.

Life path

Seiffert came from a long-established farming family there. He had to prematurely end his school education at the Pößneck secondary school because he was called up for the Reich Labor Service and then for the Wehrmacht in 1942. He made up his Abitur after the war in 1946. In the same year, Manfred Seiffert enrolled at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Jena to study agriculture , which he graduated with a diploma in 1950. Just one year later, he received his doctorate as Dr. rer. nat. After his assistantship at the Jena Institute for Arable and Plant Cultivation, he took over the management of the forage plant breeding department at the Groß Lüsewitz Institute for Plant Breeding in 1953 . At the same time he was given the teaching assignment for the entire field of arable and crop production at the Agricultural Faculty of the University of Rostock . After completing his habilitation in 1956, Seiffert was appointed professor with a teaching position for the subject of arable and crop production and director of the institute of the same name at the University of Rostock in 1957. He held this chair until his retirement in 1989.

Teaching and Research

Seiffert has represented the field of crop production at Rostock University for over 36 years . In the first five years his teaching activities even extended to the entire field of arable and crop production. On the basis of his excellent series of lectures, his first textbook Agricultural Plant Production for students in the GDR was published in 1965 . For almost two decades it was the recognized textbook for universities and technical colleges in the GDR and also a widely used book in the old Federal Republic. Since 1973, agriculture in the GDR was also oriented towards " industrial production " in terms of teaching . This orientation and the scientific and technical development under the conditions of greater specialization and concentration of agricultural production also made new teaching materials necessary. His second book Threshing and Root Fruit Production lived up to this claim .

In addition to countless diploma theses, 54 doctoral theses and 12 habilitation theses were produced under the aegis of Professors Seiffert and Pätzold in the field of crop production and grassland.

Research achievements to be highlighted

• Mechanical maintenance measures for winter and summer cereals
• Production of brewing barley at different locations (production analysis)
• Increase in red clover seed yields in the coastal region
• Winter manual propagation of cabbage and swede
• Influence of different previous crops on the winter rapeseed yield
• Production of quality wheat on diluvial soils
• Weed control in silage maize
• Comparative studies on main and catch crops
• Influence of different tillage and care measures on the potato yield

Seiffert reported on the results of his research work in over 100 scientific and popular science publications. He is also the author and co-author of 4 textbooks and manuals.

honors and awards

• Member of the Agricultural Experiments and Investigation Section of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences from 1958 to 1962
• Member of the Arable, Plant and Plant Protection Section of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences 1962 to 1969
• Member of the Crop Production Section of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences from 1984 to 1989
• Chairman of the Agricultural Society in the Rostock district from 1961 to 1973

Major works

• The acarose of the potato - a previously unknown disease. Dissertation, University of Jena 1951.
• The importance of breeding for the increase in yield in potato cultivation in the last five decades - a contribution to the methodology of determining breeding progress. Habilitation thesis, University of Rostock 1956.
• Agricultural crop production. VEB Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1965.
• Norbert Makowski among others: threshing and root crop production. VEB Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1981.
• [Co-author in:] R. Schick and M. Klinkowski: The potato. (Manual). VEB Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1961.
• [Co-author in:] Brockhaus ABC der Landwirtschaft. 2 volumes. VEB A. Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1962.

literature

• H. Pätzold: Laudation: “Professor Dr. habil. Manfred Seiffert on his 75th birthday "
• Honorary colloquium for the 75th birthday of Prof. em. Dr. rer nat. Dr. agr. habil. Manfred Seiffert. Agricultural Faculty of the University of Rostock 1999
• N. Makowski: Professor Seiffert's contribution to rapeseed in teaching and research.
• Theophil Gerber: Manfred Seiffert. In: Personalities in agriculture, forestry, horticulture and veterinary medicine: Bibliographic Lexicon , Verlag Nora, 3rd edition 2008.

Web links

• Literature by and about Manfred Seiffert in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature about Manfred Seiffert in the state bibliography MV
• Entry on Manfred Seiffert in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Not: July 22, 1924.