Growing together

After Ferdinand von Lochow had left his mark on rye breeding in 1881 in Petkus, Brandenburg, south of Berlin, Brigitta Schmiedchen embarked on her professional career just about 100 years later at this historic location. “That came about more by chance in 1983,” she says looking back. Actually, Brigitta Schmiedchen would have liked to become a pharmacist. In the former GDR, however, her path was mapped out due to her farming background, and she began to study agriculture.

Her interest continued to be chemistry – even if the focus was now no longer on medicine, but on plant protection. “In the central job placement agency in the GDR at the time, however, I was unable to find a job as a person responsible for plant protection after graduating.” This profession existed in agricultural companies as well as at farms. “I was then advised to go into plant breeding.” She found a job at the Institute for Cereals Breeding – Ferdinand von Lochow’s former company, which had since been nationalized.

Reunited seed

A year after the reunification of West and East Germany, KWS reacquired the former company headquarters in Petkus – and an exciting time began for Brigitta Schmiedchen at her new employer. “Of course, we didn’t want to betray the trust placed in us employees. We wanted to further develop the breeding activities in Petkus under the new circumstances.”

After all, political reunification also brought about a reunification of breeding material that had had the same origin up to the end of the Second World War, but had followed different paths during the years of Germany’s division into two. “Intensive selection and recombination in the breeding material had led to more and new variability.”

Focus on yield and resistances

Even thirty years on, there are always new challenges. “We now have a second breeder in Petkus,” says Brigitta, who hails from Brandenburg. She and Jakob Eifler search for new traits that support their breeding objectives. Jakob Eifler is primarily concerned with stress factors and resistances, while she is responsible for increasing yields. “Only through close dialogue with each other can we find new traits to achieve our breeding objectives. We also use material from gene banks as genetic resources and see how we can identify good top performers.”

Even though it was more by chance that she ended up in plant breeding 39 years ago and later at KWS, she says: “Looking back, I was very lucky and I’m happy with how things have turned out. My tutor said you had to change companies after ten years to be able to think creatively again. But my workplace offers such a diversity of tasks and challenges that it’s exciting to work on them and to keep on being involved in a breeding process and bring it to a successful conclusion.”