† Tribute
In remembrance of Christoph-Johannes Bolik
In September, we said farewell to our long-time station manager and Managing Director of KWS Italia. Colleagues commemorate him.
When Christoph-Johannes Bolik retired in 2010, he was able to look back on an eventful career at KWS. The graduate in agricultural sciences came to Einbeck in 1971 and began working at the KWS Institute for Plant Breeding, the predecessor of today’s Research and Development department. The journey there was quite an adventure, he recalled in an interview in insideKWS: “Not knowing where Einbeck even was, I first bought a ticket to Einfeld, just before Neumünster.”
Nevertheless, he arrived safely in Einbeck and went on to work a lot internationally for KWS before taking over as head of the institute’s Foreign Processing unit in 1989. His path even led him to the Caribbean, where he worked as a breeder in development aid on secondment from KWS. It was an activity that took him to Africa, Asia and South America over the next 20 years, alongside his main job. “I’ve never been someone who settles down in one place,” he said.
Construction of the Biotechnology Center (BiT)
In 1992, Christoph-Johannes Bolik took over as head of all KWS’ breeding stations and gained his doctorate in Munich in 1994. One special project during this time was the construction of the modern Biotechnology Center (BiT). “As project manager, he managed to reconcile the requirements of the scientists, the budget and our corporate identity,” recalls Robert Heidhues, Head of Global R&D Business Functions.
In 1999, Christoph-Johannes Bolik then moved to Italy to become head of the Monselice breeding station. “There, he developed a method that we still use today in breeding seed production,” says Robert Heidhues. “We had a problem with propagation: Due to earlier flowering of the mother plant, the father sometimes did not have pollen at the right time – and in the worst case, cross-pollination occurred. Mr. Bolik had the idea of bringing some of the pollen donors to the mothers in the greenhouse. This gave them a growth advantage and allowed them to produce pollen earlier. That significantly improved our seed purity.”
Christoph-Johannes Bolik himself described it this way: “Italy, the station in Monselice itself and the local structures were not unfamiliar to me, so it was a lot of fun to build new things as the head of the station.”
His current successor in Italy, Alvaro Rodriguez Matta, Head of Breeding & Research Stations Region South Europe, was warmly welcomed by him and his wife at the time. Although Christoph-Johannes Bolik had already retired, he showed Alvaro around the region to give him a feel for Italy. He had previously hired Alvaro himself for a new project in Chile. “The idea for the contraseasonal activities in sugarbeet came from him, and he managed to get the breeders on board,” says Alvaro. “He was always very close to his team; that was important to him.”
Until 2024, Christoph-Johannes Bolik returned to Italy almost every year to drop in and visit Monselice and his former team. As he himself put it: “This job was my life.” |
© KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA 2025
