Otto Beseler

Otto Beseler (born May 12, 1841 in Schleswig ; † July 20, 1915 in Braunschweig ) was a German farmer and plant breeder . He was awarded the highest prizes at national and international exhibitions for his successful grain breeding.

Live and act

Otto Beseler, son of the politician Wilhelm Beseler , attended grammar school in Braunschweig from 1851 to 1857 , then completed an agricultural apprenticeship in Suderode (Harz) and studied agriculture at the Academy in Poppelsdorf from 1861 to 1862 . He then gained agricultural work experience on several farms. From 1865 he managed the Anderbeck monastery near Halberstadt , initially as an administrator and since 1869 as a tenant . After participating in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71, he began breeding work on grain in Anderbeck. In 1887 he gave up the lease and took on a mandate as a member of the Prussian House of Representatives .

From 1890 to 1908 Beseler was the tenant of the Weende monastery near Göttingen. He developed the lease into an exemplary model and demonstration company and maintained close contacts with the Agricultural Institute of the University of Göttingen from the start . He has published numerous articles about his practical experience as an arable and plant farmer . His treatise The fight against weeds (1896), a comprehensive documentation on the methods of weed control in agriculture at the turn of the century, deserves special mention .

However, Beseler became famous above all for its grain breeding . Building on his breeding work in Anderbeck, he was soon one of the pioneers of efficient plant breeding in Germany. He had the greatest success in breeding wheat and oat varieties . Beseler thick-headed wheat and Beseler oats were widely used at home and abroad . A total of five times he was awarded the large silver prize coin of the German Agricultural Society , i.e. the first prize, for breeding these varieties . At the world exhibition in Paris in 1900 he received the Grand Prix for his services as a grain breeder .

From 1888 to 1911 Beseler was chairman of the seed breeding department of the German Agricultural Society. In 1902 he was awarded the title of State Economics Council.

Publications (selection)

• Under what circumstances and to what extent is it permissible to export straw from a farm with a view to maintaining the productivity of the soil . In: Landwirtschaftliche Jahrbücher Vol. 24, 1895, pp. 435–443.
• The fight against the weeds . In: Work of the German Agricultural Society, H. 17, 1896, pp. 189–215.
• The apprenticeship system in agriculture . In: Yearbook of the German Agricultural Society, Vol. 16, 1901, pp. 17–24.
• Experience in growing grain . In: Yearbook of the German Agricultural Society, Vol. 24, 1909, pp. 189–196.
• Agricultural plant breeding for the past 25 years . In: Yearbook of the German Agricultural Society, Vol. 26, 1911, pp. 89-101.

literature

• Kurt von Rümker: In memory of the state economist Otto Beseler . In: Deutsche Landwirtschaftliche Presse vol. 42, 1915, pp. 609–611 (with picture and list of publications).
• Otto E. Heuser:  Beseler, Otto. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 176 ( digitized version ).
• Rainer Polley: Jacob Otto Friedrich Beseler, farmer and agricultural economist . In: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck Vol. 8, 1987, pp. 41–43 (picture on panel 4).
• Gerhard Röbbelen: Plant breeding in Weende near Göttingen . In: Lectures for Plant Breeding H. 73, 2007, pp. 45–63 (with picture).