I only know organic. When I was born, my father had already converted the entire management of the farm to organic. At our farmstead, the “Töllerhof” in Oberplars above Merano, my grandfather had already cultivated apples with the varieties Elstar, Red Delicious, and Kalterer. The natural landscape on the sunny slopes is perfect for vineyards and orchards. Here, where countless nature lovers hike the ancient irrigation channels, the so-called Vinschgau Waalwege, I grew up. First, I learned the “craft” of nursing, until my great passion for agriculture took over. The training at the School for Female Farmers in Dietenheim, Puster Valley, was combined with several years of practice at the Laimburg Agricultural School south of Bolzano. There, I studied fruit growing, and after school, I went to South Africa for an internship abroad. I spent an influential time on a huge farm there, also run according to organic guidelines. Unlike our small farms here in South Tyrol, the areas there were enormous in size. It took days to get from one end to the other.
When I returned, our farm seemed so small and manageable that I wanted to “thin out” the few hectares of my parents’ farm all by myself. Thinning means removing undersized, poorly developed, or surplus fruits by hand, and when my father noticed I really wanted to do this task alone, he shook his head in disbelief. After my experiences in South Africa, where I had fed hundreds of horses, cows, and sheep and had also experienced the massive scale of banana harvesting, our work at home seemed almost trivial at first. That was a mistake. My father was right, and I soon realised how demanding our work on the farm really was. Shortly before I received my second visa for another stay abroad, I met my husband. We got married, and now we have two children, a little boy and a girl. Together we care for our apple orchards, planted with the varieties Royal Gala, Pinova, Braeburn, Cosmic Crisp, Topaz, Natyra, and a few Golden Delicious.
While on the large areas in South Africa everything must move faster, here in the Alpine Vinschgau I can work on each tree with great attention to detail – adding some manure as fertiliser, tying branches, adjusting drip irrigation, taking soil samples, and many other important tasks. I devote different amounts of time to each tree as needed, and each tree gives us something in return. Even though our South Tyrolean farm is small in scale, I am very glad that my father often helps out as a “farmhand” and lends us a hand. Only when everyone pitches in does nature reward us with good harvests and fruit whose flavour is second to none.
