We met Bernhard Keplinger at a meeting of free farmers at the Loidholdhof farm in Upper Austria. To be precise, we met his wife Helene first. Also there. At a meeting of free farmers organized and initiated by Susanne and Marcel, the TerraFelix team, "IF THE EARTH IS HAPPY, SO ARE WE ." Mrs. Keplinger was there out of curiosity with a friend, and she was genuinely interested in the STEINKRAFT microorganisms AM+Plus, which are produced at the Loidholdhof farm.
She passed on her enthusiasm to her husband. Bernhard has now gained some experience with STEINKRAFT products. We met him personally at the last meeting of independent farmers. There, he shared his experiences with us and other farmers.
What experiences have you had with AM PLUS microorganisms in the barn and in the manure?
"We initially started with common microorganisms. However, the way we fogged them up in the barn always triggered a coughing fit. We didn't like that. We worked with these earlier microorganisms for three years, and the manure didn't really change."
Then we found AM+PLUS, the microorganisms from STEINKRAFT , and since then the climate in the barn has improved dramatically .
And now with the AM+PLUS, we're noticing a real difference. The manure smells better, it's much easier to stir, and we no longer have flies in the barn. This year we had almost tropical weather, and the neighboring farms couldn't cope with the flies. We had almost none. Even the vet asked us what we were doing in the barn because he was so surprised that we didn't have any flies. And our vet bills have decreased significantly.
Where can rock flour and zeolite be used in the barn and in the field?
"Through the process of moving humus, we came to the idea of using rock dust, which the soil needs for lime and calcium to reactivate soil life. And you can see that it's working. Most of all in the grassland, where we spread the liquid manure. I work with a disc spreader, and you can clearly see the difference where the manure doesn't reach. I've added lime to the manure. But I'm going to switch to spreading lime and zeolite directly in the barn. That seems to be the simplest way and benefits the animals right there in the barn."
Should I feed zeolite to dairy cows?
"I've also started feeding the animals zeolite. We market yogurt and quark directly, and everyone says the taste is unique; there's no better milk. We've been safe with cell counts for a long time now anyway, because we also work with homeopathy."
What effect does Steinkraft foliar fertilizer have?
No Colorado potato beetles and a very good potato harvest
"This year, we used GRÜNKRAFT CALCIUM foliar fertilizer and AM+PLUS active microorganisms on our potatoes and had no Colorado potato beetles . We planted a quarter hectare of potatoes, and if we found even 10-15 beetles, that was a lot. In previous years, we had a really large number of beetles. And this year we had a very good potato harvest."
What fascinated me was when we walked through the row with the sprayer – after spraying – we saw that the plants had opened up so much that we couldn't really get through. It's truly gratifying to see how quickly the plants react and how much the foliar fertilizer benefits them."
Plants stay green much longer and there are no wireworms.
"AND the plants stayed green much longer . We had green potato plants for 2-3 weeks longer than all the surrounding farms. We also had zero wireworms . It's worth adding that we treated the potatoes with AM+ and zeolite right from the start. We also stored the potatoes in AM+ and zeolite. I learned that from old knowledge. My grandmother used to store potatoes in rock dust. They really do keep for 3-4 weeks longer."
From 2000m² of field, we harvested 5 tons of potatoes. We were truly delighted. We were equally thrilled with the kohlrabi. We harvested football-sized fruits that weren't woody at all.
Bernhard and Helene Keplinger, Bad Leonfelden, Upper Austria
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