Kálmán Kerpely ( Oravicabánya,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

oday Oraviţa, Romania 11 October 1864 –

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, Hungary, 24 June 1940) agronomist, agrochemist, a corresponding member of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

Education

He attended the Academy of Mining and Forestry in Selmecbánya (Hungary, today in

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

), then from 1881 until 1884 the Agricultural High College in

Keszthely Keszthely (; also known by alternative names) is a Hungarian city of 20,895 inhabitants located on the western shore of Lake Balaton. It is the second largest city by the lake and one of the more important cultural, educational and economic hub ...

(

). In 1889-1890 he gained the scholarship of the Ministry of Agriculture to study agricultural matters at the

Martin Luther University Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (), also referred to as MLU, is a public research university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg. It is the largest and oldest university in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. MLU offers German and i ...

(

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Career

After his return he was appointed to the Agricultural High College in Keszthely as professor of the agricultural botany, plant anatomy and phytopathology. In 1892 he occupied the position offered to him at the

Debrecen Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...

Agricultural High College, between 1899 and 1904, then from 1908 until 1913 he was the director of the institute. In 1897 he organised a tobacco breeding station near Debrecen (Pallagpuszta). In 1920 he left Debrecen and moved to the Péter Pázmany University where he was the first professor of plant breeding until his retirement in 1935. His research mainly focused on the soil conditioning and on

fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

s, but he also improved the

agrotechnology Agricultural technology or agrotechnology (abbreviated agtech, agritech, AgriTech, or agrotech) is the use of technology in agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture with the aim of improving yield, efficiency, and profitability. Agricultural tec ...

of tobacco and rye cultivation. He thoroughly studied the physico-chemical properties of soil, relationship between the

water content Water content or moisture content is the quantity of water contained in a material, such as soil (called ''soil moisture''), rock, ceramics, crops, or wood. Water content is used in a wide range of scientific and technical areas, and is expressed ...

and circuit and the crop quality. For nearly half a century he was a prominent figure of the Hungarian

agricultural education Agricultural education is the systematic and organized teaching, instruction and training (theoretical as well as hands-on, real-world fieldwork-based) available to students, farmers or individuals interested in the science, business and technol ...

Honors

In 1922 he was elected corresponding member of the

References

*''A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia tagjai 1825–2002 II.'' embers of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 1825–2002.Budapest, 2003, pp. 662. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kerpely Kalman Hungarian agronomists Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences People from Oravița 1940 deaths 1864 births Scientists from Austria-Hungary History of agriculture in Hungary