The German botanist Dr Erwin Baur (1875-1933) first studied medicine and then biology. In 1911, he was appointed to the Chair of Botany at the Agricultural College in Berlin and in 1914 he founded the first Institute for the Science of Heredity. At that time, phylloxera, powdery mildew and downy mildew were a serious problem in European viticulture. Baur realised that it must be possible to combine the resistance of American wild vines with the quality of European cultivated vines by consistently applying genetic principles. In 1928, he founded the Department of Grapevine Breeding in Müncheberg (Mark Brandenburg) as a branch of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) for Breeding Research (pictured is the entrance to the former main building).
![]()
As honorary chairman of the Domäne Wachau, it is the easiest and quickest way for me to access the wein.plus encyclopaedia when I have questions. The certainty of receiving well-founded and up-to-date information here makes it an indispensable guide.
Hans-Georg Schwarz
Ehrenobmann der Domäne Wachau (Wachau)