Nils Stein, head of the ‘Genebank department’, announced a “rather unusual eulogy” and invited Frank Blattner onto the stage of the lecture hall. He immediately explained that he would be giving the laudatory speech himself, looking back on his 27 years at the institute. He said that he may have upset some colleagues over the years and did not want to ask them to give a speech. Crocuses, pumpkins, saffron, ants - and, of course, barley: the diversity of plants, animals and spices that the long-standing head of the ‘Experimental Taxonomy’ research group has dealt with is as great as his curiosity. This has also been the driving force behind his numerous collecting trips.

“Evelin Willner worked with great passion and enthusiasm during her 33 years at the institute,” emphasised Beat Boller, a forage plant expert from Switzerland, in his laudatory speech for the long-standing curator of oil and forage plants. “As queen, you steered the mini-principality of Malchow very well through many a storm and knew how to engage politicians in the process.” Not only did Evelin Willner take care of ‘her’ collections in Malchow, but she also enjoyed going on collecting trips. Her first took her to Poland in 1993 and her last to Switzerland in 2017.

Andreas Börner has spent 40 years at the institute, meaning the three jubilarians together have amassed 100 years of service. In her laudatory speech, Ulrike Lohwasser said that the work of the long-standing head of the ‘Resource Genetics and Reproduction’ research group was highly regarded internationally. He is a member of the Hungarian and Indian Academies of Sciences and has been President of EUCARPIA, the European Society for Plant Breeding Research, since 2020.

However, it was not only Andreas Börner's work and personality that were honoured in Ulrike Lohwasser’s laudatory speech; Svetlana Misheva, a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, also delivered a very personal commencement speech. “I have also learned many important things from Andreas Börner, including how important it is to build bridges across borders.”

In his commencement speech for Evelin Willner, Torben Asp, a scientist at Aarhus University in Denmark, presented the work of the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen) and two specific projects: one on soybeans and one on ryegrass. 

‘The Scent of Lady's Slippers’ was the intriguing title of the commencement speech given by Gudrun Kadereit, a scientist at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, on behalf of Frank Blattner. She explained how a special type of orchid is pollinated via scent.

The symposium concluded with a Star Wars parody about the work of the institute’s ‘Galactic Gene Bank’. Three seeds are causing unrest there. Samples of these seeds, named ‘Master Börnoda’, ‘Evi W Kenobi' and ‘Frank Chewbacchacrocus’, were analysed and the results were handed over to the head of the Galactic Genebank. He decides to use the three seeds in a 'pan-galactic gene bank cultivation programme' and send them to all corners of the galaxy.

At the end of the symposium, which was accompanied by music from the ‘Coin Hill Swing Duett’ from Quedlinburg, Nils Stein expressed his belief that this ‘galactic’ film, based on Manuela Nagel’s screenplay, would not be the last to be shown at the IPK.