Growing Area

Apple Orchard Schmidt

The apple orchard Schmidt is located in the second biggest apple-municipality Markt Hartmannsdorf!

Back then, the farm dealt with cattle breeding and dairy economy; the fields were cultivated with 8 horse-drawn carriages. Ever since then the house meadow was planted with fruit trees with old apple and pear varietes. In 1958 the first tractor, a Steyr 188, was purchased by Johann, who also laid out the first site with around 1 ha Golden Delicious in a planting distance of 8 x 6 m hollow crown for the fruit production. Back then the plant health protection was done manually with hose and arm.

Later the growing area was extended by 1 ha with the varieties McIntosh, Kronprinz Rudolf and Gravensteiner on seedling. In the early 70s Gottfried attended the college for fruit production in Wetzawinkel, which was followed by another extension of the growing area with the varieties Gloster and Idared on M26 with a planting distance of 4 x 2 m. 1984 the first tractor, an IHC with a closed spray booth and a saddle nose with fan. In the late 80s / beginning of 90s the first hail protection nets were built. Again the area got extended with the varieties Elstar, Empire, Jersy mac and Vista bella. 1996 Georg attended the college in Wetzawinkel and since then lot has changed in regard to the varieties and planting systems.

Today the economic size of the farm is 33 ha, 14 ha for apple cultivation with hail protection nets, including 4 ha with full net protection. Furthermore we possess 3 ha elder and 10 ha forestry. The remaining area consists of fields and a tree school, where part of the trees are used for the production and another part for sales.

The main variety is Gala with 6 ha, followed by 3 ha Golden Delicious, 2 ha Jonagold and 3 ha Braeburn. On virgin territory we plant 3,3 x 0,8-0,9 (around 3800 trees per ha) and, for reproduction,  3 x 0,8-0,9 ( around 4200 trees per ha). The striven winter height is 2,8-3 m.

To manage the business economically, we try to gain high and stable yields with optimal planting material.

Johann and Lisi Reiter

The grandparents, Theresia and Josef Schellnegger, managed back then a mixed company with pigs, cows but also apples of the variety Kronprinz on seedling.

The farm was taken over in 1974 from the parents, Theresia and Johann Reiter. In 1982 the area was extendend, focusing on fruit plantation with new varieties like Gloster, Idared, Jonagold and Golden on new underlays like M9 and M104.

As the parents set highest value on the latest state-of-the-art of exonomy, the first hail protection net constructions were mounted in 1990.

In 1995 the farm was handed over to us, Elisabeth and Johann Reiter.

We specialized on fruit cultivation and extended the areas with new apple varieties like Gala, Braeburn and Granny.

Farm Hadler

Karl Hadler took over the livestock farm in the year 1957. Back then the growing area was around 12 ha. The restructuring to fruit-growing took place in the years 1958 to 1960. Primarily the varieties Kronprinz Rudolf, Golden Delicious, James Grieve, Gloster and Idared were planted. At that time strongly growing underlays were used, leading to the planting system to have 5 meters row distance and 3 meters tree distance.

From 1960 on, also pear varieties like Alexander Lukas, Gute Luise and Clapps Liebling were planted. In the beginning of 1980 the varieties were cleaned out and the operations were changed to exclusively apple production.

In the 90s the acreage was extended to 38 ha. The varieties of fruits were revised to 12 ha Gala, 12 ha Golden, 10 ha Braeburn and 4 ha Granny Smith. The planting system was revised to weakly growing underlays and the planting distance was reduced to 3 m row distance and 0,7 m tree distance. The whole cultivation area is equipped with hail protection nets.