The Apoplast of Higher Plants: Compartment of Storage, Transport and Reactions

This book summarizes the experimental work conducted during a trans-disciplinary research program conducted for six years by the German Research Foundation. Each chapter includes introductory remarks written by internationally recognized scientists in their research areas.

Contributiing authors representing outstanding German scientists from such different disciplines as Physics, Biochemistry, Plant Nutrition, Botany, and Molecular Biology not only report original research but also review the state of knowledge in their fields of research.

Burkhard Sattelmacher was an internationally highly estimated scientist in the area of plant mineral nutrition. He contributed substantially to the scientific excellence of Plant Nutrition especially through his engagement within the German Research foundation particularly through the initiation and contribution to coordinated research programmes and as a member of the International Council for Plant Nutrition. He was a stimulating teacher, mentor, and colleague. He found research in plant nutrition fascinating, and was able to transmit that fascination to those around him. He died in November 2005 at the age of 58 after many months of courageous fighting against his disease.
Born in Kiel he studied Botany at the Technical University of Berlin. He got his PhD in Plant Nutrition at the same University under the guidance of Horst Marschner. Deeply concerned about poverty alleviation through plant-production research he continued his work on the physiology of potato for 4 years as a post doc at the International Potato Center (CIP), Lima, Peru. This and follow-up research in Hohenheim represented the basis for his habilitation at the University of Hohenheim in 1986. In 1985 he accepted the call as professor for Plant Nutrition in Kiel. Since 1992 he was head and chairholder of Plant Nutrition at the Institute of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, Faculty of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, University of Kiel.
In the centre of the scientific interest of Burkhard Sattelmacher was the physiology of crops. He was convinced that its basic understanding is a prerequisite for solving practical problems related to crop management. In the early nineties Burkhard Sattelmacher developed a research area on nutrient fluxes in agricultural land-use systems comparing conventional and 'biological' plant-production systems. Over 9 years he participated in a German Research Foundation (DFG)-funded Special Research Project with research projects on root turn-over, N uptake particularly from manure, ammonia and dinitrogen-oxide emission in a winter rape-seed winter-barley rotation. He extended his interest to the nutrient budgets of natural ecosystems in the ecosystem research programme Bornhöveder Seenkette.
Among the research projects he initiated during the last years were particularly two to which he devoted his full force until the last days of his life: the DFG Special Research Programme 'The apoplast of higher plants: compartment of storage, transport, and reactions' and the DFG Research Group 'Matter fluxes in grasslands of Inner Mongolia as influenced by stocking rate'.
Burkhard Sattelmacher always maintained an interest in new developments in agronomy, botany, and soil science. He especially enjoyed discussing ideas with colleagues and students. He was highly estimated as a referee for scientific journals, as well as for funding agencies not only because of his wide knowledge and experience, but because his interest was in the progress of science, without personal bias.
We have lost in Burkhard Sattelmacher an extraordinary person, teacher, scientist, and colleague. We will miss his stimulating contributions to scientific progress. The co-editor and the authors dedicate this book summarising the main achievement of the special research programme 'Apoplast' which he initiated and of which he was the speaker. Unfortunately, he did not have the pleasure to finish this book himself.
Walter Horst