Matthias Christian Rabbethge
Matthias Christian Rabbethge ( born March 1, 1804 in Small Rodensleben, † December 26, 1902 in Kleinwanzleben ) was a German sugar beet growers and sugar producer.
Life
The youngest of seven siblings had to collaborate early on in his father's agriculture Rabbethge. After the death of his father he took over in 1825, together with the mother this agriculture. In 1847 he acquired the nearby Kleinwanzleben a 212 -acre farm, which included a stake in a small local sugar factory. This sugar factory was founded in the wake of the spread of Zuckerraffinadetechnologie from beets by Franz Carl Achard in 1838 by 19 local farmers and tradesmen.
The sugar production
From the mid 19th century, the cost beet sugar had the expensive cane sugar largely replaced as nutritious calories donors for the broad mass of the population, however, was still not in sufficient quantities. Rabbethge, who had recognized the economic potential of sugar beet production in the fertile soil of Magdeburg and thus the production of sugar, acquired in the subsequent period, together with his later son Julius Giesecke ( 1858 husband of his daughter Marie), the shares of the other shareholders. Beginning in 1864, the sugar factory was renamed first as a general partnership Rabbethge & Giesecke, 1865 it was converted into a public limited company and changed its name from now on under sugar mill small Wanzleben formerly Rabbethge Giesecke & Company. Rabbethge examined continuously by technical improvements in the production of sugar, in parallel, he enlarged the acreage by purchase and lease. Towards the end of the 19th century, the company had become one of the largest farms in the province of Saxony.
The sugar beet breeding in Kleinwanzleben
However, his greatest achievement was together with his sons Matthias jun. and Charles, both of whom had studied agricultural science to achieve through breeding to improve the beet quality in terms of their sugar content. The to be used for seed production beets were selected using the determination of the specific gravity from 1859 according to the sugar content. From 1862 onward was the investigation of the so selected by the polarimetric beet sugar concentration.
This breed success was so remarkable that developed parallel to cultivation and refined a Saatzuchtfabrikation. The Kleinwanzlebener original became one of the richest and most popular varieties in 1910 was covered in beet seeds Kleinwanzleben for about a third of world demand. The Kleinwanzlebener type is still the progenitor of almost all sugar types that are grown worldwide. From this seed breeding, today's small - Saatzucht, since 1999, the KWS SAAT AG developed.