Innovative agricultural research at the Weihenstephan campus
Food security, climate protection, energy supply, resource conservation, health: society is facing these central challenges in the coming decades. At Weihenstephan, the agricultural sciences of the Technical University of Munich work in close cooperation with forestry, environmental and nutritional sciences as well as food technology. The goal: Solving Global Challenges
The Hans Eisenmann Forum is the central institute for agricultural sciences at TUM. It connects the agricultural science oriented chairs within TUM as well as with partners.For further information look into "About us".
More than 30 chairs at the Technical University of Munich are part of the HEF. They are grouped by the disciplines Plant/Crop Sciences, Livestock Sciences, Agroecology, Agricultural Technology and Agricultural Economics.
Climate change confronts agriculture with enormous challenges. How agriculture can cope with the changes and prevent further warming are key issues in agricultural research.
Digitization and robotics are fundamentally changing agriculture. These technologies make work easier for farmers. They can also make it possible to operate in a more environmentally friendly way.
Agroforestry systems combine elements of arable farming and animal husbandry with forestry. As a result, they have positive effects on the ecosystem and the economy.
Vertical agriculture can produce food in large quantities and consistent quality, regardless of environmental conditions. It thus offers enormous potential, e.g. for feeding the population in growing metropolitan areas.
A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has made a contribution to German animal welfare legislation with research into the pain sensation of chicken embryos: For animal welfare reasons, the destruction of eggs as part of the sexing of chicken embryos has been banned from the 13th day of hatching since 2024. The TUM researchers, including HEF member Prof. Benjamin Schusser, are awarded the Felix Wankel Animal Welfare Research Prize 2025 for this commitment.
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Strengthening scientific cooperation, promoting the global agricultural community, developing new ideas - On March 6, 2025, the TUM School of Life Sciences and HEF welcomed a high-ranking delegation from Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU), a leading Chinese university in agricultural sciences. The participants report and explain what makes these exchanges so valuable.
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When nitrogen levels are too high, for example due to excessive fertilization, plants become more susceptible to certain diseases. However, the exact reasons are not yet fully understood. A group of researchers involving the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now taken the first steps towards answering this question. They identified a small protein (peptide) that makes the plant resistant to certain bacteria. However, its effect is limited when there is a high nitrogen supply.
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