Case study: Hausdorf organic winery

Fertile loess, chalky brown soil and red gravel soil all combine to make the hills and terraced vineyards in the Neudegg region of Lower Austria a real paradise for wine. This is the home of the Arkadenhof owned by the Hausdorf family. The Hausdorf family’s love of nature and wine saw them switch their farm to organic methods back in 1995. Besides grapes for wine, the Arkadenhof also cultivates table grapes. The latter have considerably larger fruit and leaves, and are also more sensitive than wine grapes. There is a risk them bursting in the case of a hailstorm or large amounts of rain. In order to give the sensitive fruit an additional layer of protection against hail, damage caused by birds and wasps, the grapes ripen under large, fine-mesh protective nets. Organic pesticides protect the table grapes from fungal infections such as mildew and botrytis. The winery has been using high-performance VICAR radial blowers since 2011 to ensure that the fruit and foliage are effectively coated in the crop protection. The blowers make sure that the pesticide successfully travels through the protective net, fully coats the leaves and penetrates the stems of the plants. The sensitive fruits are fully protected as a result.

Unlike German wineries, the lanes between the rows of vines are far wider in Austria. For example, the distance between the vine rows is between 2.7 and 3.1 metres on the Hausdorf estate. The powerful turbines can easily cope with these distances. It means that the pesticide only needs to be applied from every other row, despite the wider distances between the vines. Moritz Hausdorf, who has run the family winery since 2018, is convinced of the efficiency of the crop protection technology for his organic business. The grapes have suffered significantly less from disease and it has also been possible to reduce the amount of pesticide required since the radial blowers were introduced. Investing in a new computerised system to control the blowers, Hausdorf has been able to reduce the pesticide by a further 5 to 10 percent.

"Since switching from conventional axial blowers to VICAR crop protection technology, we no longer need to differentiate between the varieties when applying the crop protection and travel at different speeds depending on the plants. This has massively simplified our daily work. Then there is the fact that we have been able to reduce the amount of pesticide we use and that the fruits are generally less afflicted by disease", explains Moritz Hausdorf, from Arkadenhof Hausdorf in Neudegg, Lower Austria.

When it comes to applying the biodynamic compounds, Hausdorf is a bit of a tinkler. „The amount of biodynamic compound required is far too low for conventional devices. So I went back to the powerful turbines from VICAR and designed an additional system, which is able to apply the biodynamic compounds to the vines as a spray mist of very fine droplets."

Related links: www.Akatenhof-Hausdorf.at