Wilhelm Kappel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Kappel (born August 17, 1929 in Arzis , Romania ) is a German maize breeder .

Life

After the German-Soviet non-aggression pact , Kappel's family had to leave Bessarabia in 1940. She was naturalized in the German Reich in 1941 in the Zwickau resettlement camp and settled in Gdansk-West Prussia in 1942 , in Groß Elsingen in the resurrected Wirsitz district . As a farmer's son, Wilhelm Kappel wanted to become a teacher. So he attended the teacher training college in Graudenz . In October 1944 he was drafted there as an air force helper. In January 1945 he and his comrades were evacuated by the last train over the Graudenzer Vistula Bridge in front of the advancing Red Army . They came to Grömitz via Danzig and Stettin . In 1946 he found his mother and the two siblings in Kieve near Röbel / Müritz . In order to ensure the food of the family that was still fatherless due to the war, he worked there in rural agriculture. The three and a half year activity as a farm laborer was later recognized as an agricultural apprenticeship and he was able to take the agricultural assistant examination. This was the basis of his further professional development. In 1949/50 he attended the Agricultural College in Malchow (Mecklenburg) and 1950–1952 the Higher Agricultural School (Thünen Institute), which was assigned to the University of Rostock . After graduating as a state-certified farmer, he acquired the university entrance qualification. The state control did not allow him to take up university studies at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg , because the collectivization of agriculture in the GDR that had meanwhile begun urgently required skilled workers to look after the agricultural production cooperatives. So he had to take up a job as an MTS agronomist at the machine-tractor station in Schwastorf , Waren district . Later he worked as a district agronomist at the council of the district of the district of Neubrandenburg in Neustrelitz . Here he began a two-year distance learning course at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1953 .

From 1955 he studied at the Bernburg University of Agriculture for two years until he was awarded a diploma in agricultural sciences . In 1957 he found a job at the Institute for Plant Breeding of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Berlin as a scientific assistant in maize breeding. After studying in Bucharest in 1963, he devoted himself to inbreeding heterosis in maize in Bernburg.

With a doctoral thesis with Fritz Oberdorf , he was awarded a Dr. agr. PhD. Externally, he passed the examination as a state-certified seed breeding manager at the Martin Luther University in 1973.

In 1984 he completed his habilitation at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the GDR. The speaker for the work was Arno Winkel . The academy appointed him professor in 1986. Between 1972 and 1990, a total of 35 hybrid varieties were registered in the state list of varieties, all of which had been bred according to the "Bernburg method". The market share in the German Democratic Republic was 80–90% of the GDR's corn cultivation area. These hybrids were also widespread in Poland , the Soviet Union and Hungary .

After the reunification and peaceful revolution in the GDR , he accompanied the privatization of Bernburg breeding (maize, spring barley and wheat) to APZ (Anhaltische Pflanzenzucht GmbH) as a subsidiary of KWS Saat AG in Einbeck . Until he retired in 1993, it was the managing director. He has lived in Röbel since 1993. In 2009 he ensured the resumption of the day of national mourning in this city. For the restoration of the memorial hall in the Nikolaikirche (Röbel) he collected a five-figure sum. For many years he directed the Röbeler Male Choir from 1855 e. V. He also initiated the Lions Club Waren / Röbel, of which he was a member.

He was married to Marlene born in 1957. Effland, state-certified day-care center manager. He has been widowed since 1991.

Honors

  • Honored breeder of the GDR (1973)
  • Hungarian Order of Merit for Labor in Silver (1986 and 1996)
  • "Goldenes Maiskorn" of the German Maiskommitee (1996)
  • Honorary member of the German Maize Committee (1996)

literature

  • Laudation “Goldenes Maiskorn” for Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Kappel . German Maiskommitee (DMK) Bonn, 1996.
  • “Mais aktuell”, information from the APZ “Thanks to Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Kappel ” . Anhaltische Pflanzenzucht GmbH Bernburg, member of the KWS Group, 1993.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dissertation: Investigations into grain size and shape, as well as their influence on seed value, growth, development and yield in maize (Zea mays L) .
  2. ↑ Doctorate B: Maize Breeding in the GDR - Development, Methods, Results as well as Experience and Conclusions .
  3. ↑ 75 years of agricultural research (SVZ)
  4. ↑ Laudation for Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Kappel (mueritzportal.de)
  5. ↑ DMK congratulates Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Kappel on his 90th birthday (German Maiskommitee)
personal data
SURNAME Kappel, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German plant breeder and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 17, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Arzis , Bessarabia