History of replant disease and soil sickness in Hungary

Problems of cultivating plants on sites where the same species have been grown before, have been recognized since the biblical period and earlier in the Mesopotamian cities. The replant disease of fruit trees was well-known in the Roman Empire, too. But the first description of the phenomenon came from Worlidge (1698) in the book "Systema agriculturae". At the same time, there were intuitions and knowledges in ancient Hungary. Archeobotanical data and many publications are verifying the replant troubles (Lippay, 1664-1667 and Nadanyi, 1669). The important agriculturists such as Mitterpacher (1779-1794), Nagyvathy (1791) and Pethe (1805-1814) recognized that good methods for stopping the soil exhaustion and degradation are crop rotation, manure or an intercultural system. Milhoffer (1897) wrote the summary of soil exhaustion and he was the pioneer who determined the specific and unspecific replant disease. Formaldehyde was recommended for soil fumigation in Hungary (Herke, 1915).