Sigmund Rehm

Sigmund Rehm

Sigmund Eugen Adolf Rehm (born January 4, 1911 in Munich ; † December 13, 2001 in Göttingen ) was a German crop scientist . He was the founder and first professor of the Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Crop Production at the Georg-August University in Göttingen . Its botanical author abbreviation is SEARehm .

Life and work until 1966

Sigmund Rehm, son of the philologist Albert Rehm (1871-1949), studied botany at the University of Munich and was there in 1934 with a thesis on water transport in Spring herbs ( Impatiens balsamina L. and others) to Dr. phil. PhD. In the following years he worked with Kurt Mothes at the University of Königsberg and with Otto Stocker in Darmstadt on the absorption of substances and the physiology of drought tolerance in barley and sugar beet . In 1939 he received at the Technical University of Darmstadt with his habilitation thesis The effect of electrolytes on the absorption of acidic and basic dyes by the plant cell the Venia legendi for the subject botany.

In 1939 he traveled to Cameroon on behalf of the Foreign Service of the Reich Research Council . A few weeks after the outbreak of World War II , he was interned in South Africa . After 1945 he stayed in the country and initially worked as a farm manager. In 1949 he was employed as a scientist in the horticultural department of the South African Ministry of Agriculture and was entrusted with the management of the department of plant physiology, fertilization and soil science . His research on bitter substances in cucumbers attracted international attention and laid the foundations for Dutch breeding of bitter-free cucumber varieties. In 1966 he was accepted as a full member of the South African Academy of Science and Art.

Teaching and research activity in Göttingen

In 1967, Rehm followed the call to a newly established chair for tropical and subtropical crop production at the University of Göttingen . The Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Crop Production, which was built in Göttingen-Weende in the following years, had several laboratories, four climatic chambers for carrying out ecophysiological experiments, two air-conditioned rooms and three greenhouses for demonstrating tropical and subtropical crops and useful plants. The experimental work at this institute began in 1969. Of the various research topics are: combating nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus L.) using growth regulators , eco-physiology of niger seed (. Guizotia abyssinica (L. f) Cass.) , Development of the contents of Karkadeh (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) , nutrient deficiency and salinization problems in coffee and other cultivated plants, reproduction of the coconut palm through tissue culture and further development of tropical mixed cultures .

A central research focus with a lasting international impact was studies on the importance of VA mycorrhiza for crop production. In extensive experiments it was examined how other forms of plant nutrition can be used in tropical and subtropical climatic regions with the help of microorganisms (e.g. with nitrogen-fixing and phosphate-dissolving bacteria). In addition to the work at the Göttingen Institute, research projects were carried out in cooperation with international agricultural organizations and universities in Brazil, Nigeria, India, Indonesia and other countries. During his tenure at the University of Göttingen, Rehm supervised 28 dissertations and 87 diploma or master's theses.

From 1968 until shortly before his death, Rehm worked on a comprehensive database on tropical and subtropical crops. It currently contains over 5,000 plant species with information on ecophysiology, distribution, use, folk names in local languages ​​and bibliographical references to around 20,000 publications. On the basis of this file, Sigmund Rehm and Gustav Espig published the book The Cultivated Plants of the Tropics and Subtropics in 1976 . This work, of which revised editions appeared in 1984 and 1996 and of which there are also editions in English and Italian, is regarded worldwide as a highly informative reference work. This crop file also formed the basis for Rehm's late work, the Multilingual Dictionary of Agronomic Plants , published in the Netherlands in 1994 .

Rehm retired in 1979, but carried on the official business until 1981. Even after his final retirement , he worked tirelessly. As co-editor of the second edition of the five-volume handbook of agriculture and nutrition in developing countries , he was solely responsible for the volumes Basics of Plant Cultivation in the Tropics and Subtropics (1986) and Special Plant Cultivation in the Tropics and Subtropics (1989). He was also a co-author of the two volumes.

From 1974 to 1991 Rehm was a member of the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Acker- und Pflanzenbau ( Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science ). As a crop scientist, he remained closely connected to botany. The decades-long membership in the Association for Applied Botany was a matter close to his heart. From 1975 to 1983 he was president of this specialist society, which made him an honorary member in 1985.

Fonts (selection)

• Agricultural tree crops in arid and semi-arid areas . In: Der Tropenlandwirt , Supplement No. 5, 1974, pp. 122-132.
• The crops of the tropics and subtropics. Cultivation, economic importance and utilization (together with Gustav Espig). Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1976; 2nd edition ibid. 1984; 3rd edition, ibid. 1996 - edition in English: Margraf Publishers Weikersheim 1991; Edition in Italian: Edagricole - Ed. Agricole Bologna 1997.
• Ecophysiology of tropical and subtropical crops . In: Handbook of Agriculture and Food in Developing Countries . 2nd completely revised and expanded edition, Vol. 3: Basics of plant production in the tropics and subtropics . Published by Sigmund Rehm. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1986, pp. 93-114.
• Millet . In: Handbook of Agriculture and Food in Developing Countries . 2nd completely revised and expanded edition, Vol. 4: Special crop production in the tropics and subtropics . Published by Sigmund Rehm. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1989, pp. 79-86.
• Multilingual Dictionary of Agronomic Plants . Edited by Sigmund Rehm. Kluwer Publishers, Dordrecht 1994.

literature

• Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Crop Production. Structure, development, focus of work in research and teaching . Published by the Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Plant Production at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. Information brochure (16 pages), Göttingen 1981 (with picture and list of the dissertations prepared by S. Rehm).
• Wolfram Achtnich : Prof. em. Dr. Sigmund Rehm 75 years old . In: Göttingen Contributions to Agriculture and Forestry in the Tropics and Subtropics , H. 12: Land use, soil fertility and plant production in the tropics and subtropics . Göttingen 1986, pp. 4-6 (with picture).

Web links

• Literature by and about Sigmund Rehm in the catalog of the German National Library