Farmers had a good year this year.
The weather was largely good for agriculture - there was only a brief dry period in spring - led to high yields in both grassland and grain.
District - “It was a very good year,” said Bernhard Heger, looking back on the summer.
The farmer who has a grassland farm in Peißenberg is making a comparison with previous years.
This year there were no extreme weather conditions that would have hindered growth.
There was only a drought in spring, but this did not have any major impact.
Not only was the growth good, but also the quality, which also depends on the weather.
"It was a normal summer as we know it from the past," said Heger, summarizing the situation in the grassland area.
Things are also looking good with grain, as Eva Lang reports, who is responsible for statistics at the Office for Food, Agriculture and Forests in Weilheim.
It receives data from selected companies, which are included in the Bavaria-wide statistics.
Their area ranges from Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the south, where there is almost only grassland, to the Munich gravel plain in the north, where arable farming plays a major role.
The harvest of winter barley was good, as data from a farm near Altenstadt shows.
At 80 quintals per hectare, the yield there was above the multi-year average, which fluctuates between 70 and 75 quintals.
The other types of grain, however, would be on average.
In the Starnberg district, one farm achieved 49 quintals of spring barley in organic cultivation, while conventional cultivation achieved 55 quintals of the same variety on slightly gravelly soils.
The yields of organically grown oats are similarly high.
The farm examined produced 50 quintals per hectare, with clover being grown as a previous crop.
According to Lang, barley plays a bigger role in our region than wheat because it is more robust.
Spring barley is used not only as bread grain, but also for brewing, while winter barley is also used as fodder.
Lang has no data on other varieties such as spelled, soy and rapeseed, which only play a minor role.
No figures are yet available for maize, of which less than a fifth is marketed as grain maize.
According to Lang, the largest part is ensiled and used as animal feed, a small part is intended for biogas plants.
Dominik Pentenrieder was able to harvest less winter barley than usual.
The reason for this was the late frosts and the drought in spring.
But the spring barley was "very good".
The farmer from Pähl is worried about the wild boar and "increasingly also the beavers".
These would damming up drainage ditches and thus cause waterlogging in the soil, which would affect the yield.
District chairman Wolfgang Scholz also notes that it was a good year.
Since May was very rainy in the west of the district, the first cut was only possible relatively late, which led to a delay throughout the year, but this was not a problem.
As for the water, the farmer states: "We live in a god-blessed land."
BY ALFRED SCHUBERT
