There is now an abundance of catch crops, new or rediscovered old plants that thrive in the fields - and only very few citizens know what they are.
In our new series “What is growing there?” We introduce them.
Today an unloved plant: the ragwort.
Sindelsdorf
- The flower blooms in bright yellow, but Uli Kennerknecht doesn't want to smell it or put it in the vase, he wants to pluck it out.
The 20-year-old routinely puts a commercially available dandelion pin over the flower, kicks the cutter deep into the earth with his foot, shifts his weight - and out is the flower and its roots.
Allow me: ragwort, the horror of cattle and horse keepers.
Usually in this series we describe grains or plants that the farmer grows and that are useful to him.
It is different with ragwort - we also have the tall ragwort and in the mountains the alpine ragwort: no farmer wants it, because it can be fatal for the animals.
Previously planted consciously, today a problem
"The water ragwort is indigenous to us, it did not immigrate like other plants," says Kennerknecht, the future successor to Benedikt Zwink near Sindelsdorf. In the past, ragwort was even deliberately planted by the authorities in order to stabilize freshly built slopes on roadsides with the deep-rooted plant. The ragwort has recently spread in the foothills of the Alps, which has brought a fatal property to the fore: It is highly toxic.
No cow or horse would eat ragwort in the pasture.
But it's different in the silage, because the animals don't notice it.
The insidious thing about ragwort: The cows and horses do not get sick immediately, but the poison accumulates in the liver until the animal dies at a certain concentration.
"And you don't know what it killed, as a rule you don't autopsy a dead cow," says Kennerknecht.
Pulling out is tedious
The ragwort is dangerous even for humans. “The flower is in many of the bouquets that children collect in the meadow because the plant looks beautiful,” says Kennerknecht's mother Gabi. If the children or adults then put contaminated fingers in their mouths or rub their eyes, the same effect happens as with cows and horses. That is why Kennerknecht only goes to pluck the ragwort with gloves.
The work is extremely tedious.
At Kennerknecht on the calf pasture right next to the farm there is only an occasional ragwort.
“Nevertheless, I need ten hours to pull out a hectare because everything is manual work,” says the 20-year-old.
He cannot simply leave the flower lying around, because then it will be in an emergency state and the seeds will fall off.
"A single plant can give off up to 20,000 seeds that stay in the ground for a long time," says Kennerknecht.
On the compost with it?
Just don't!
Your own compost is therefore also taboo. The ragwort has to be delivered in large quantities to special composting plants using the house rotting method, and some biogas plants can also handle it at higher temperatures. A lot of effort for a farmer. But ignoring does not work - once too much ragwort is in a pasture, an entire cut cannot be used. And chemistry is not an option for Kennerknecht, because even then the silage is over for a whole year. As if Kennerknecht continues to wander through the meadows with the cookie cutter.
