Maria Thun 1922 - 2012
The Telegraph 15 March 2012.
Maria Thun, who has died aged 89, was a leading authority on "biodynamics", an approach to agriculture and horticulture which uses the waxing and waning of the moon and the position of the planets and constellations to determine when to sow and harvest; her annual Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar was regarded as a vital land practice tool by aficionados.
The principles of biodynamic agriculture were first proposed by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1924. He spoke of life forces not detectable by physical senses, yet linking together the universe and all living things. He believed that the energy of plants can be affected not only by human actions and weather but also by the energy of the moon, stars, and planets. Decisions about when to sow and prune, he suggested, should be made according to patterns of lunar and cosmic rhythms.
beginning in the 1950s Maria Thun decided to subject his principles to controlled trails on her farm on the outskirts of Darmstadt in Germany, beginning with radishes. Planting the vegetables when the moon was in different constellations, she discovered, resulted in their growing into different forms and sizes. Over years of research she concluded that root crops (including onions and leeks, which are not technically root crops) do best if sown when the moon is passing through constellations associated with the earth element; leafy crops do best when the moon is associated with water signs; flowering plants do best the associated with air signs, and fruits did better with fire signs.
Beginning in 1962, she produced a series of annual sowing and planting calendars and later set out the principles of her methods in Gardening for Life: the Biodynamic Way (published in English in 1999). In 2010, with her son Matthias, she published When Wine Taste Best: A Biodynamic Calendar For Wine Drinkers, setting out the most propitious days for wine-tasting based on the position of the moon.
Though skeptics dismissed biodynamics as hocus-pocus and were wont to point out that movement's guru, Rudolf Steiner, had arrived at his theories after consulting telepathically with unearthly, spirits, biodynamics has attracted some adherents.
Several leading supermarkets reportedly try to ensure their wine tasting are held when Maria Thun's moon related biodynamic calendar dictates proponent of natural and organic wines. Other followers include such respected gardeners as John Harris at Tresillian House Gardens in Cornwall.
Maria Thun was born near Marburg, Germany, in April 1022. Her father had a small farm and the children were involved in the farm work. In the early 1940s, she met her future husband Walter Thun, who introduced her to farmers who were attempting to put Steiner's ideas about biodynamic farming into practice. Fascinated, she attended an introductory course at the Institute for Biodynamic Research in Darmstadt.
Rudolf Steiner had pointed out the connection between cosmic forces and the growth of plants. Maria Thun began studying the astrological calendar of the Goetheanum ( the center of Steiner's Philosophy) and discovered that every two or three days the moon passes into in a different constellation of the zodiac. This led her to study whether the crop cycle might be affected by the astrological calendar.
Maria Thun is survived by her son and daughter.
Maria Thun, born April 1922, died February 9, 2012.
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