Walther Brouwer
Walther Brouwer (born January 12, 1895 in Wilhelmshaven ; † July 20, 1979 in Stuttgart ) was a German crop scientist.
Life path
Brouwer, son of a high school professor , was a naval officer during the First World War, then worked in agricultural practice, studied agriculture at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen from 1922 and received his doctorate there in 1926 under Otto Tornau with the dissertation “The relationships between harvest and weather in agriculture ”. He then worked as an assistant to the cultural technician Wilhelm Freckmann (1878–1963) at the Institute for Moor Culture of the Prussian Agricultural Experimental and Research Institutes in Landsberg / Warthe. In 1928 he went to the Agricultural University in Berlin, where he completed his habilitation in 1930 and worked as a senior assistant at the Institute for Cultural Technology until 1934.
In 1934 Brouwer was appointed to the chair for arable and crop production at the University of Jena as the successor to Ernst Klapp . With great organizational talent, he succeeded in adding an experimental farm to his institute and also setting up a workplace for plant breeding work. The Second World War, during which Brouwer was again deployed as a naval officer, put an early end to many research projects. In 1945, Brouwer and other scientists were evacuated from Jena by units of the American army. He found a new home in Stuttgart-Hohenheim. From the end of 1945 to March 1963 he was director of the Institute for Plant Cultivation and Plant Breeding at the Hohenheim Agricultural University and at the same time director of the Württemberg State Plant Breeding Institute .
Research services
Brower's research focus was initially in the areas of general crop production and cultivation technology. He dealt particularly intensively with the problems of field irrigation , with the specific characteristics of agricultural crops being the focus of all irrigation attempts. His book Die Feldberegnung , first published in 1933 and published several times, was for decades the authoritative work in the field of irrigation literature.
Summarizing research results in his field in handbooks has always been a particular concern for Brouwer. He made a name for himself early on in the field of semenology. The comprehensive handbook of seed science (1955), which he developed together with Adolf Stählin , is the unsurpassed standard work for science and seed practice to this day.
After his retirement, Brouwer wrote a two-volume manual on special crop cultivation . The first volume (1972) deals with the main types of cereals, the second volume (1976) potatoes, beta beets, rape and turnip rape, peas and field beans. Brouwer is the sole author of the first volume, and well-known colleagues supported him in the second volume. This manual is also one of the standard works in crop science.
In 1928 Brouwer founded the Deutsche Landwirtschaftliche Rundschau , which provided an overview of the entire agricultural literature in Europe. Until 1935, when this bibliographical journal had to cease publication, Brouwer had published twelve volumes as chief editor. From 1949 to 1970 he was also co-editor of the magazine for arable and plant cultivation . Many of his 150 scientific publications have appeared in this journal. From 1961 to 1963 Brouwer was chairman of the Society for Crop Science .
Awards and honors
- 1960 Max Eyth silver medal from the German Agricultural Society
- 1960 Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Giessen
- 1965 honorary member of the Society for Crop Science
Major works
- Agricultural seed science. A key to determining the small-grain cultivation seeds as well as the most important weed seeds . Neudamm 1927.
- The field irrigation . Berlin 1933, 2nd edition ibid. 1935, 3rd edition Stuttgart 1950, 4th completely revised and expanded edition Frankfurt am Main 1959.
- Handbook of seeds science for agriculture, horticulture and forestry with a key for determining the most important agricultural seeds (together with Adolf Stählin). DLG-Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1955, 2nd edition, ibid. 1975.
- Handbook of special crop production in two volumes . Verlag Paul Parey Berlin and Hamburg 1972 a. 1976.
- A journey through my life . Duplicated typewritten manuscript o. O. uo J. (1977).
literature
- A. Scheibe : Walther Brouwer 70 years . In: Zeitschrift für Acker- und Pflanzenbau Vol. 121, 1964/65, pp. 101-105 (with picture).
- W. Achtnich : Dr. Dr. hc Walther Brouwer on his 75th birthday . In: Zeitschrift für Kulturtechnik und Flurbereinigung Vol. 11, 1970, p. 128 (with picture).
- G. Voigtländer: In memoriam Walther Brouwer. In: Zeitschrift für Acker- und Pflanzenbau Vol. 148, 1979, pp. 413-417 (with picture).
Web links
- Literature by and about Walther Brouwer in the catalog of the German National Library
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Brouwer, Walther |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German crop scientist |
DATE OF BIRTH | January 12, 1895 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Wilhelmshaven |
DATE OF DEATH | 20th July 1979 |
Place of death | Stuttgart |