MIE celebrates Plant Health featuring our iDiv gardener Alvin Barth

Picture: © S. Bernhardt (iDiv)

Note for the media: Use of the pictures provided by iDiv is permitted for reports related to this media release only, and under the condition that credit is given to the picture originator.

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. In addition to scientists, also our gardeners and technicians are of uttermost importance for the quality of our plant research. They are the hands, eyes and brains in the greenhouse, field experiments and ecotrons. For this reason, April 2020 is the month of Alvin Barth, our iDiv gardener.

My name is Alvin Q. Barth. I am the gardener of iDiv. I take care of the plants that the scientists need for their experiments. I started my career as a gardener in the Botanical garden of the University of Leipzig as an apprentice. My motivation to choose this career is that I wanted to maintain the variety of plant species we have alive and to save the ones that are threatened. The botanical garden has a huge number of plant species. I was also motivated by the fact that “green jobs” are dying out more and more. The scientists at iDiv do important research in biodiversity, and I am very happy to be part of it.”