Wilhelm Knop

Wilhelm Knop ( born June 28, 1817 in Altenau (Harz ), † 28 January 1891 in Leipzig ) was a German agricultural chemist.

Life

Wilhelm Knop studied natural sciences at the Universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg and taught from 1847 to 1856 mechanics and natural sciences at the Commercial College in Leipzig. In 1853 he habilitated with a work on the physiology of aquatic plants at the University of Leipzig, where he worked from 1861 as adjunct professor and from 1880 as Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. From 1856 to 1866 he was also the head of the scientific department of the Agricultural Experimental Station Möckern near Leipzig.

The focus of his research activities were in the areas of plant physiology and the fertilizer teaching. Through his pioneering experiments with the cultivation of crops in nutrient solutions Knop is considered one of the founders of the method of hydroponics. Knopsche the nutrient solution has the following composition:

Because at the time of Wilhelm Knop, the chemicals were not very clean, could do without the addition of other trace elements. With today's much purer chemicals, the addition of trace elements is recommended, for example in the form of the solution according to Hoagland AZ.

He has published in the magazine The country wirth economic experiment stations Most of his experimental results. For Knop the cultivation of crops in nutrient solutions was primarily a method for uncovering scientific laws. In order to determine the effectiveness of mineral fertilizers he looked at the field trial as the authoritative method of investigation.

Knop was from 1848 to 1856, the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Centralblatt and at times the Chemical Centralblatt out. He wrote several books about agricultural chemistry and fertilization problems in agriculture.

Writings

  • About the behavior of some aquatic plants to gases. Leipzig 1853.
  • Manual of chemical methods. Leipzig 1859.
  • The cycle of the substance. Textbook of agriculture chemistry. 2 vols Leipzig 1868.
  • The Bonitirung of arable soil. Leipzig 1871; 2nd edition with supplement ibid. 1872.
  • Field soil and Culturpflanze. Leipzig 1883.
Altenau, Lower Saxony Neue Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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