Evgenii Votchal

Born Sept. 14 (26), 1864, in Borznia, present-day Chernigov Oblast; died Apr. 1, 1937, in Kiev. Soviet plant physiologist; Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1921).

Votchal graduated from the University of Kazan in 1889 and then worked in the laboratory of K. A. Timiriazev at Moscow University (the Petrovskaia Agricultural Academy). From 1898 to 1932 he was a professor at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute (later called the Kiev Agricultural Institute). Votchal’s doctoral dissertation was entitled “On the Movement of Sap in Plants” (1897); his basic works were devoted to water movement in trees, sap tapping, plant electrophysiology, and the physiology of the sugar beet (its drought resistance and the dynamics of sugar storage and transfer). Votchal established the Ukrainian school of plant physiologists.