RIP
Professor Dr. Gerhard Roebbelen, born in 1929, passed away on August 1st, 2024.
Gerhard Roebbelen was THE key rapeseed scientist in Germany.
He started in 1966 – together with private plant breeding companies – the quality revolution of winter oilseed rape, organised as public private partnership named “Goettingen Working Group Quality Rapeseed“. From 1970 until 1994 he was Director of the Institute of Agronomy and Plant Breeding at the Georg-August University Goettingen. He and his team developed impressive screening technics for the analysis of fatty acids, glucosinolates and other traits. He selected basic quality germplasm, all first zero erucic and low glucosinolate varieties in Germany were based on his research material. Later on, the “Roebbelen Institute” created a huge range of genetic diversity, like fatty acid mutants, low fibre germplasm, disease resistances and resynthetic rapeseed. He also established basic research on heterosis, hybrid breeding and hybridisation systems. Finally, he was very early focussed on tissue culture and molecular marker techniques.
Gerhard Roebbelen has had broad scientific interest, beside rapeseed, he worked on Arabidopsis, faba beans, peas, cereals, and different minor crops.
As teacher, he supervised about 90 PhD students.
Gerhard Roebbelen was very active in many scientific organisations, during many years he was editor of the Journal of Plant Breeding, he founded and chaired as president the German society of plant breeding GPZ, he was president of EUCARPIA and board member of GFPi and UFOP. Last but not least, he was founding member of GCIRC and always highly engaged. In 1999 he was honoured with the Eminent Scientist Award!
Rest in Peace Gerhard Roebbelen and many thanks for outstanding contributions to the worldwide rapeseed and canola community, they will stay forever.
