Dr. Karin Winkler

The special nature of Witzenhausen was also evident to me in the diversity of my fellow students: from the farm successor from Schleswig-Holstein to the apple farmer from South Tyrol to the emigrant who wants to start sheep farming in the Spanish Pyrenees - many individual life paths led to this small yet important place on the Werra.

Important foundations for my future career were laid in Witzenhausen. My documents from that time include overheads for a presentation entitled "The use of beneficial insects in organic farming". At the tropical greenhouse, I was given the opportunity to help develop a concept for biological plant protection. The professorship for plant protection was vacant at the time, so I went to Göttingen for a while with my fellow student Albrecht Benzing to take a course on the basics of entomology at the university.

Technically, a lot has changed since my time in Witzenhausen. My first experience with the advantages of e-mail was at the end of my bachelor's degree. When I asked Wageningen University whether I could start the Master's course in Plant Sciences with a specialization in IPM the following autumn, despite missing the enrolment deadline, I received a reply just four hours later! I would have had to wait at least four days for a reply by traditional post.

While I was studying all facets of plant protection in Wageningen and specializing in entomology, the professorship for ecological plant protection was filled in Witzenhausen. As a student member of the appointment committee, I was delighted that Maria Finckh was chosen. I didn't go ahead with my plan to return to Witzenhausen for a doctorate because the Robert Bosch Foundation offered me the opportunity to do my doctorate in Wageningen on a scholarship.

The fact that I had just become pregnant when the project was accepted was no cause for concern for my doctoral supervisor: he also took his little son out to the field trials in his backpack during his doctoral thesis. Thanks to the flexibility of the foundation, good childcare in the Netherlands, a great father who looked after our son full-time in the first few months and a network of good friends, it was actually possible to combine working towards a doctorate with the demanding life of a mother.

After another two years of research, there was no more funding for the time being. As luck would have it, a translation agency urgently needed a German-speaking colleague. So I used my language skills professionally for a few years. The content was mostly less interesting, but for a change it was a bit more relaxed and flexible than the research work.

I made the step back to university when a former colleague at the fruit-growing institute called me to ask if I could imagine working as an entomologist in applied research again. I have now been working at the Fruit Growing Institute at Wageningen University since 2015. The focus of my work is on biological plant protection, but every now and then there are cross-connections to other areas that make me think back to my time in Witzenhausen. For example, we use organic fertilizer from cattle free stalls in an experiment to improve the soil. This brings back memories of the early mornings we spent in the deep-well barns of some dairy farms as part of a research project to assess the cleanliness of the cows' udders...one of the many experiences from Witzenhausen that I wouldn't want to miss!

Götz Papke: That's a nice report! Even if there are a few zigzags, you seem to be doing well and you are still in agricultural science. I am now a so-called senior auditor for two standard setters, VLOG and KAT for Europe. Every now and then I drive through Holland and always think, Manometer it's densely populated here and the Dutch are really crazy about agricultural science.