When I attended agricultural high school, my first encounter with organic farming was anything but positive. At school, we were shown discouraging examples of apple orchards overrun by pests like aphids and scab fungi, and the orchards looked accordingly terrible. Fortunately, as a farm manager at a large organic farm, I had much better experiences: in those orchards, there was a harmonious balance between pests and beneficial insects, and I saw that it was indeed possible to achieve excellent yields organically. Eventually, I was even able to convince my father to switch to this more sustainable method of cultivation. In the small village of Plaus near Naturno in the Vinschgau Valley, we were the first to make the transition to organic.

I never hesitated to ask others for advice in order to learn from their experience. I bombarded countless organic farmers with my eager questions. I didn’t want to take risky experimental steps in my own orchards. Thanks to the many tips and insights from other farmers, that wasn’t necessary. I simply picked out the most important information from their answers and used it to build my own individual knowledge of organic farming.

I specialized quite early in red apple varieties. Royal Gala trees are relatively easy to manage organically, provide consistently good yields, and tolerate the simplest plant protection treatments. I also grow Pinova, Topaz, a small amount of Red Delicious, and my favorite apple variety: Natyra. The location of my orchards is ideal for organic farming, as they do not border any conventional orchards. A stream and a natural biotope form their natural boundaries and are home to many beneficial insects.

Despite these optimal conditions, organic farming requires courageous decisions. The very limited use of plant protection must be carefully planned, targeted, and effective from the start. Since I farm part-time and both my wife and I work full-time in the healthcare sector, we have to manage our time very well. When things get really tight, my father steps in with his years of experience. Our family manages with just a few seasonal workers. We essentially run our apple farm ourselves and love raising our two children in an environment that includes chickens, pigs, and miniature sheep. To balance our main jobs with farming, we all get up very early, and my parents are active helpers. Working in nature through farming is a perfect counterbalance to the stress of our professional lives—it's both my place of peace and my hobby, alongside hunting. In the alpine Vinschgau region, the apple may be king—1,600 farmers work for it every day—but deer and roe deer also thrive in the alpine climate and sometimes become a bit too numerous.

For the future, our family is considering building a few holiday apartments at the “Gartnerhof” to allow interested guests to experience the beauty of our valley. Here in the Vinschgau, apples can carry a trace of fresh mountain air—and that’s part of what makes them so popular with people from the city.