Radl family
HUMUS+farmers since 2014
We are a family farm with 25ha of grassland, arable farming and vegetable cultivation as well as 11ha of forest. My wife Christa and I run the farm together with our daughters Andrea and Kerstin. We grow grain, maize, sunflowers and pumpkins and produce vegetables under film and in the open. Our products are sold directly from the farm via our farm shop and a self-service box.
In addition, we also have cattle and produce wool with alpacas; a composting plant with 2000 t of input is also part of our farm.
Since 2014, we have participated in the HUMUS+Program and actively build up humus through measures such as crop rotation, compost fertilisation, manure fertilisation, greening and the reduced use of heavy equipment and the plough.
Albin Petkovic
HUMUS+farmer since 2019
Our farm with forest and grassland is situated in a mountainous altitude in the district of Murau.
I mainly manage the forest and have leased out the meadows, but I am also passionate about ecological forms of grassland management. I discovered my love for soil during my geography studies and on excursions.
The HUMUS+Days also contributed to my enthusiasm, and so in 2019 I finally joined the HUMUS+Program. In the process, I immediately ventured to try out new fungal preparations on large trial plots with more depth. However, fertilisation mainly with cattle slurry made this method difficult and so a conversion to manure followed on a quarter of the area.
Grazing, less manure application and one cut less are now leading to more diversity on the meadows. This has been getting more and more evident over time.
Herbert Zetner
HUMUS+farmer since 2019
We are a family farm from Auersthal in the district of Gänserndorf, about 20 km northeast of Vienna. In 2020 we converted to organic and produce market crops such as cereals (durum wheat, soft wheat, winter barley, rye, spelt), pseudo cereals such as buckwheat, millet, rape, soy, maize, sunflowers, hemp, field beans, peas, caraway.
Since 2019, I have been taking part in the HUMUS+Program of the Kaindorf Ecoregion, where I am financially rewarded for building up humus.
I am motivated by the fact that with higher humus contents, the little precipitation in our region (about 450 litres per year) does not disappear into the streets and cellars of the village, but remains on my fields, where my plants need it. In addition, the experience I have gained on a "test field", which I have been cultivating regeneratively for more than 10 years, confirms this. The higher humus values (at 4%) meanwhile result in very reduced weed growth and the yield adjusts itself to a comparatively high level. I also find flower strips important. The more biodiversity there is, the fewer weed problems I have.
I now have a larger network than I used to, which I can use to exchange experiences, and I am in contact with like-minded people all over the world. It means a lot to me to walk the path together. The educational and counselling opportunities are also much greater today than they used to be.
