We use cookies on our website. Some are necessary for the operation of the website. You can also allow cookies for statistical purposes. You can adjust the data protection settings or agree to all cookies directly.
You can find projects by searching for:
Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz
Lower Saxony and Bremen
Calenberger Straße 2
30169 Hannover
Website: External link to the authority
Reducing pest pressure and diversification of business operations through keeping poultry in mobile stables in organic managed orchards
The fruit production in Germany mainly takes place in regions with a favourable climate. In Lower Saxony this is the region “Altes Land”. The landscape is strongly embrassed by the orchards and fruit production. Specific pests find ideal living conditions in these regions because of the high concentration of fruit trees. This requires an intensive pestmanagement to prevent yield losses. Organic fruit producers are also highly specialized farms, which have a need of intensive organic pestcontrol. To control insects in the orchards is difficult, because, they occur in different morphological phases. The larvae of some pestinsects overwinter in the soil, where pestcontrol action can’t affect them. Insects are part of the natural feedbase of poultry and they have the natural instinct to search for insects in the soil. Besides this, the structure of the orchards is perfect for poultry yards. In the project the keeping of turkeys and laying hens will be compared on three organic fruit growing farms. It will be analyzed, how the animal-keeping can be integrated in the work flow of the farms.
The aim of the project was to determine in practical operational procedures whether the keeping of poultry, in this case turkeys and laying hens, can reduce pests relevant to fruit production in intensively managed organic orchards. However, this could not be proven for any of the considered pests. In addition, it should be considered whether and how poultry farming can be integrated into the operational processes of a ommercial orchard. It has been shown that many factors must come together for successful poultry farming so that a company can use it to develop an additional branch of the business. This includes, for example, free personnel capacities, a strong motivation to deal more deeply with the animals and fixed responsibilities
for animal care. Keeping laying hens has definitely proven to be a more feasible variant in this project, since the animals and the mobile stable in this variant were purchased by the farm and were on site the entire... (see final report).
Rural development 2014-2020 for Operational Groups (in the sense of Art 56 of Reg.1305/2013)
Kompetenzzentrum Ökolandbau Niedersachsen GmbH
Bahnhofstraße 15 b
27374 Visselhövede
Phone: 04262/959369
Email: s.kuschnereit@oeko-komp.de
2019
completed
462,802