Willem Feekes

Willem Feekes (born December 27, 1907 in Meester Cornelis , Java , † February 9, 1979 in Haren (Groningen) ) was a Dutch agricultural scientist . His name became world-famous for the scale he developed ( Feekes scale ) to characterize the development stages of the cereal plant based on morphological features .

Live and act

Willem Feekes studied agriculture at the Wageningen Agricultural University and obtained his doctorate there in 1936 with a thesis on the development of natural vegetation in the Wieringermeer polder. As a member of the “Technical Wheat Commission” he has been investigating the eco-physiological and morphological properties of the wheat varieties grown in the Netherlands since 1934 and published numerous reports on them.

Feekes' article De tarwe en hair milieu ( The wheat in its environment ), published in 1941 , was groundbreaking for many areas of grain research . He was the first to develop a development scale based on morphological characteristics using the example of the wheat plant , which was also used worldwide as the “ Feekes scale ” for assessing the developmental stages of other cereal species. In the following decades, similarly designed development scales for other agricultural crops were created based on his model.

From 1955 until his death, Feekes was chairman of the Dutch Grain Center. He also published scientific articles in English and German.

Publications (selection)

• De tarwe en hair milieu . In: Verslagen van de Technische Tarwe Commissie . Groningen, Volume 17, 1941, pp. 523-888.
• Interregional aspects of day length and temperature effects in cereals . In: Lectures for Plant Breeders . Volume 13, 1973, pp. 87-112.

literature

• KP Wouda: In memoriam Dir. Ir. W. Feekes 1907-1979 . In: Report on the 1979 working conference (anniversary conference) of the “Working Group of Saatzuchtleiter” as part of the “Association of Austrian Plant Breeders” held from November 27th to 29th, 1979 in Gumpenstein . Gumpenstein 1979, pp. XXI – XXII with picture.
• William W. Geertsma: Willem Feekes 1907–1979 . In: Euphytica . Volume 28, 1979, pp. 827-828 (with picture).
• Further obituaries and appreciations in: Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science . Volume 30, 1982, pp. 1-9 (with list of publications and picture).