Otto Cimbal

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Otto Cimbal (born April 10, 1840 in Frömsdorf , Münsterberg district , province of Silesia ; † October 22, 1912 ibid) was a German plant breeder.

Life

As the son of a farmer, he took over his father's farm in 1868, initially conducted comparative variety tests with potatoes and later bred his own varieties. His most famous potato variety was the red-skinned, starchy "Professor Wohltmann". At the same time, Cimbal was a successful wheat breeder. In 1903 he was appointed to the State Economics Council for his services to agriculture .

He became famous for his wheat breeding. His aim was to give the English wheat varieties with their high grain yield, which were popular all over Germany at the time, the winter hardiness required in East Germany as the native, but not so high-yielding varieties had. In long, painstaking detailed work, he succeeded in achieving this goal by breeding new varieties. “Grand Duke of Saxony Wheat”, “Fürst Hatzfeldt Wheat”, “Sylvester Wheat” is what he called his particularly popular new varieties.

Cimbal's beet crossings were even more resounding in science and practice. Mass yield, high nutrient content and shelf life were the properties gained in this area, especially the “orange-yellow giant fodder beet” and the “Frömsdorf yellow giant fodder beet”.

The Silesian seed breeder, like his biographer, seed breeding manager Dr. Paul Friebe, handed down to the Historical Commission for Silesia in the first volume of the Silesian Life Pictures from 1922, as a potato grower. It is Cimbal's great merit to have bred new, high-performance varieties from the varieties that existed in Silesia at that time, some of which were already heavily degraded. In 1889, the almost fifty-year-old brought his first successful crossbreeding product to the market in the field of potato breeding, the "First von Frömsdorf", a variety that is particularly resistant to all diseases. It was quickly followed by other new breeds by the man who was now in the midst of success: "Alma" as a table potato, "Fürst Bismarck" as a starch-rich factory potato, "Early Yielding" as an early potato, and finally the world-famous variety "Professor Wohltmann". His laborious, immensely extensive breeding diligence did not tire, even if in thousands of attempts only one seedling suitable for further breeding was offered to him. He was always interested in the toughest varieties. Because only they offered a prospect of survival.

Honors of all kinds, medals, prizes, including those from the Paris World Exhibition, were given to him as recognition. High state officials, including the Prussian Agriculture Minister Victor von Podbielski (1844–1916), important scientists and practitioners visited him alongside the large number of Silesian farmers, signed his guest book and became his admirers, many of them, according to the great sponsor of the German agriculture Ferdinand Wohltmann , also his best friends. As early as 1902, the Illustrierte Landwirtschaftliche Zeitung recognized his important achievements in a lengthy treatise. Cimbal had long since received the attention it deserved in agricultural specialist literature.

After his death in 1912, his unmarried daughter Maria Cimbal took over the management of the mentioned kennel. Before she died on December 30, 1928, however, she adopted her nephew, the seed breeding inspector and graduate farmer Otto Marocke, who from then on traditionally bore the name Otto Cimbal (December 3, 1896) in the 1920s.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Cimbal, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German plant breeder
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH Frömsdorf , District of Münsterberg , Province of Silesia
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1912
Place of death Frömsdorf , District of Münsterberg , Province of Silesia