Albert Boerger

Albert Boerger, known in South America as Alberto Boerger (1881 to 1957), was a German scientist in phytotechnology whose wheat breeding made outstanding contributions to plant science in Uruguay. Born in Förde in Westphalia to farming parents, he studied natural sciences and engineering at Hannover and agronomy and political economics at Bonn, and took a doctorate at Giessen. After a German government mission in 1910 to study grassland and forage production, he was hired by the government of Uruguay to breed plants and arrived there in March 1912. He worked at the Toledo nursery and the Bañados de Medina station, and from 1914 directed the La Estanzuela station in Colonia, where in 1918 his team released the first Uruguayan wheat varieties, selected from native seed. The station now carries his name.