The trees are waiting for water

He doesn’t want to be dissatisfied, he says, and looks across the meadow. District technical advisor michael stromer takes a tour of one of the most beautiful places in the district, the meadow orchard of the environmental station near banz monastery. There are 230 trees here with about 80 different kinds of fruit. The very rough part of it are apple trees. From the banzberg you can look far down on meadows and fields between nedensdorf and herreth. But this idyll cannot hide the fact that there was not enough rain here either.

On 3. October is harvest day again below kloster banz. "I have the impression that the meadow orchard here is still a little better than in other parts of the county", stromer says about the apple harvest this season. 2018 was a strong year, this year a lower yield was already to be expected, because the amount of apples fluctuates annually anyway. A strong year is usually followed by a weaker one.

At banz, the harvest will be average, elsewhere it will be lower due to the drought. "You notice every liter of water that is missing." The meadow also had to be mowed only once – as in 2018. "Otherwise the grass is knee high at this time of year." The fruit set in spring was very good, stomer recalls. But now the trees had shed a lot of fruit because they could not care for it. And what still grows, often turns out to be much smaller. "No tree in the meadow has ever seen a spray", he emphasizes. Sometimes there are also small spots on the apples. "This is more of a quality feature." Even old varieties like the boskop with its leathery skin and sour taste are allowed to grow here. The meadow is something like an archive of fruit culture. Even such fruits find buyers here: "sour and small has its niche."