Biography Prof. Dr. Josef G. Knoll

	Professor Dr. Josef G. Knoll 26.06.1899 - 12.09.1976 He comes originally from Ulm and studied agriculture in Hohenheim and Munich. In his Ph.D. thesis he dealt with the plant societies of permanent grassland and devoted his scientific work to pasture management and forage production. An area with very little research activities so that he became the inventor of the first pasture map of Germany. From 1937 to 1945 he was a professor at the University of Leipzig. In 1946 he was instructed to set up a state teaching and research department for pasture and feeding stuff cultivation in Wehrda (State of Hessen). Three years later, he became the director of the research and extension institute for mountains farming of the former state of South Baden in Donaueschingen.
	In 1954 Prof. Knoll was assigned department director at the FAO (Food- and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) in Rome. He became the first German department director and was responsible for plant production and plant protection. During his work in Rome he was an important contributor to the world seeds campaign of Dr. F. T. Wahlen which aimed to provide sufficient high quality seeds for developing countries with food deficits to increase crop yields. Furthermore he devoted his work in fighting against desert grasshoppers. Egypt was one of the major working areas of Prof. Knoll, which became under his advice a rice exporting country instead of a rice importing country.
	In 1961 he was appointed by the University of Hohenheim on the newly established chair for tropical agriculture. Until his retirement in 1966, he formed the institute which became the nucleus of today's Centre for Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics at the University of Hohenheim. He was a pioneer of agricultural research in developing countries in Germany.
	After his retirement Professor Knoll returned to his birthplace Ulm.
	There was a long-standing, close friendship between J. G. Knoll and the Eiselen family. 1989 the Eiselen Foundation decided to name her science prize after Prof. Knoll to keep the memory for this outstanding scientist.



	© Eiselen Foundation Ulm, 2004