Freising farmers fear the worst: the harvest withers

Created: 08/18/2022, 08:00

By: Helmut Hobmaier

The soil that the photographer lets trickle through his fingers is bone dry.

© Lehmann

Drought and heat lead to enormous yield losses in agriculture.

The situation is "depressing" says the BBV district manager.

District

– The Isar has leveled off at an extremely low 36 centimeters – fish are gasping for air.

Farmland turns to dust, trees shed leaves.

It's bone dry in Freisinger Land.

Everyone is waiting for the long-awaited long-lasting downpour.

A disaster is looming for agriculture.

"It's depressing," says Gerhard Stock, managing director of the BBV district association in Freising.

The situation is fatal, no improvement in sight - "and we have no tools in hand to do anything about it".

Farmers in the Freising district have to watch helplessly as their harvest spoils under the blazing sun, heat and drought.

Maize, potatoes, sugar beets, hops, grassland - there are signs of enormous yield and quality losses on all fronts this year.

The situation is "questionable," says Stock.

Every rain comes too late for the corn

example corn.

In the decisive growth phase at the end of July – when “the flag is raised”, as experts call this period, the corn would have needed a lot of water.

But it came far too little.

The hail damage in the maize crops is still harmless compared to the damage that the farmers are now expecting.

The plant shows no buttocks.

Even if the rain were to come, it would already be too late for the corn: "It's over and done with," as Stock says.

The yield losses will be enormous, Stock knows - but further up north, near Eichstätt, for example, it is much worse: "total failure".

Grassland is the closest to this scenario.

In the neighboring district of Erding, where a little more rain fell this year, "it still looks pretty good", reports the BBV managing director, "but here it has hardly rained since mid-June.

Since then, practically nothing has grown.” While the first cut was still quite satisfactory, the second or third cut would be “very moderate”.

Here too: High yield losses.

The same picture applies to potatoes, a pillar of our diet.

Here, too, the farmers will harvest less and the potatoes will be smaller – especially the late potatoes that are stored over the winter.

Farmers who cannot irrigate their potato fields are hit particularly hard.

The tractors pull a plume of dust behind them when they work in the fields.

The extreme drought leads to high yield losses in all areas.

© Lehmann

The hop is a tragic victim

The sugar beet would also have needed significantly more rain.

"But the days with heat well over 30 degrees also affected the plants," as Stock says - devastating for the local crops.

After all, the grain harvest "got off with a black eye", as Stock says.

Here most of it was harvested before the sun scorched the earth at 35 degrees.

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By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Freising newsletter.)

A particularly tragic victim of the inclement weather is the hop, which is actually tough.

First, a large part of the 2,000 hectares of cultivated land was hailed.

The result: Fewer leaves, less shadow formation, more heat damage.

"That costs income," the BBV managing director knows.

But that also costs quality.

The hops are likely to have less alpha acid this year due to the heat and drought - and that is the key when it comes to brewing beer.

The situation in the forest is "catastrophic"

And the situation in the forest?

"Catastrophic" says Gerhard Stock.

The bark beetle will spread again.

All trees would suffer from drought stress.

In addition, there is still an extreme risk of forest fires.

The head of the Freising forestry operation, Alfred Fuchs, warned urgently about this weeks ago.

Since then the situation has worsened.

He advises everyone who is out and about in or on the edge of the forest to exercise the utmost caution.

A cigarette butt thrown away - and all that remains of our local forest is a mountain of ash.

The outlook?

Rain is forecast for the next few days.

It will probably not be enough to fundamentally change the situation," suspects Gerhard Stock.

"What we need now is not even 20 liters, but 14 days of overland rain."

You can find more current news from the district of Freising at Merkur.de/Freising.

City plants in drought stress: Nevertheless, not everything is watered

Always on the move with their two watering wagons in the Freising city area: With the water from their two vehicles, which hold one and two cubic meters, they are something like the lifesavers of the city plants.

But: "We only water what has been planted in the past three years," clarifies the manager of the city garden center, "everything else has to come through by itself".

Plant troughs in the city center can hope for one water shower per week, as can the newly planted trees in the Freising city area.

Everything else is not cast, if only for capacity reasons.

Even trees that visibly suffer from the drought and shed leaves have to do without the precious water.

It would simply not be possible to water all the trees, Gasperini clarifies - even if the sight of the stressed trees hurts him.

The problem: far too little snow in winter

“The current drought is not yet extreme.

That happens again and again," says the head of the municipal garden center, "but the dry years seem to be increasing."

In his opinion, the main problem is the low snowfall in winter: "In the past, there was often much more snow, which then served as a water reservoir in spring after it had melted".

There was little snow this year – and then in March there was an extended dry phase.

There was repeated rainfall in the district over the course of the year - but mostly only a few liters per square meter.

Only once, on July 25, 32 liters fell - the previous, rather pathetic annual record.

Gasperini doesn't believe in the heavy rain for the weekend either: the announced amount of rain will hardly change the situation.

"Maybe we'll have to water less one day," says Gasperini - but that should have been it.