Dmitry Nikolaevich
Pryanishnikov
1865-1948
Dmitry Nikolaevich Pryanishnikov was a scientist in the field of agrochemistry, plant physiology and plant growing, academician of the Academy of Sciences (AS) of the USSR, academician of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after V.I. Lenin (VASHNIL) of the USSR, Professor and the Head of the Department of the Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev, the head of the Laboratory of Mineral Fertilizers of All-Union Institute for Fertilizers, Agrotechnics and Agro-Soil Science. He was born on November 6, 1865 in the Kyakhta trading settlement of the Trans-Baikal region (now a city in the Republic of Buryatia in the Russian Federation). In 1883 he entered the mathematical department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, but after 2 years he transferred to the natural Sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University and graduated in 1887. From 1894 to the end of his life, for over 50 years, D.N. Pryanishnikov was a professor and the head of the department of Moscow Agricultural Institute. Back in pre-revolutionary times, D.N. Pryanishnikov became an outstanding scientist, the closest associate of K.A. Timiryazev, one of the most prominent representatives of Russian agronomy and the creators of agrochemistry as a science. Pryanishnikov’s main research is devoted to plant nutrition and the use of artificial fertilizers in agriculture; the study of nitrogenous nutrition and the exchange of nitrogenous substances in the plant organism; scientific justification of the use of ammonium salts in agriculture; research in the field of plant nutrition and the use of fertilizers; problems of green fertilizer (sideration); issues of the use of peat, manure and other organic fertilizers. D.N. Pryanishnikov gave a justification for the methods of fertilizing plants and applying various types of fertilizers. He proposed new methods for studying plant nutrition: the method of so-called isolated nutrition, sterile cultures, fluid solutions, as well as various methods and techniques for analyzing soils and plants. In 1908, in his laboratory, for the first time in Russia, he received superphosphate and precipitate from Russian raw materials. In 1916, D.N. Pryanishnikov formulated the theory of nitrogen nutrition of plants, which became a classic; he investigated the ways of transformation of nitrogen-containing substances in plants, explained the role of asparagine in the plant organism. Within the framework of this theory, he built a scheme of transformations of nitrogenous substances in plants, investigated the role of ammonia in this process, explained the role of asparagine in the plant organism and refuted the prevailing view of this substance as the primary product of protein breakdown; showed that asparagine is synthesized from ammonia formed in the plant at the final stage of protein breakdown or entering it from the outside. He created the national school of agrochemists. Pryanishnikov’s works contributed to the chemicalization of agriculture in the USSR – the widespread introduction of mineral fertilizers into agricultural practice and the creation of a powerful fertilizer industry. He developed the scientific foundations of soil phosphorization. From 1929 to 1941 he was the head of the Department of Agronomic Chemistry of the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University. During the Great Patriotic War, he was evacuated to Central Asia, where he led the work on land survey in order to expand agricultural land. In total, under his leadership, over 13 million hectares of previously uncultivated land were identified and used for sowing grain and industrial crops, which played an exceptional role in providing the Red Army. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Patriotic War I degree, medals. He was the Hero of Labor and the Laureate of the V. I. Lenin Prize, the Stalin Prize, the K.A. Timiryazev Prize of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Address: Moscow, Pryanishnikova str., 31
