We met Bernhard Keplinger at a Freibauern meeting at Loidholdhof in Upper Austria. To be precise, we first met his wife Helene. Also there. At a Freibauern meeting organized and initiated by Susanne and Marcel, the TerraFelix team THE EARTH IS HAPPY - SO ARE WE. Mrs. Keplinger was there out of curiosity with a friend and she was really curious about the STEINKRAFT microorganisms AM+Plus, which are produced at Loidholdhof.
She successfully conveyed her enthusiasm to her husband. Bernhard has now gained some experience with STEINKRAFT products. We met him in person at the last Freibauern meeting. There he shared his experiences with us and other farmers/Freibauern.
What experiences have you had with AM PLUS microorganisms in the barn and in slurry?
"Originally, we started with common microorganisms. And when we nebulized them in the barn, we always got a coughing fit. We didn't like that. We worked with these earlier microorganisms for 3 years and the slurry didn't really change either.
Then we found AM+PLUS, the microorganisms from STEINKRAFT, and since then, the climate in the barn has improved immensely.
And now with AM+PLUS, we notice a real difference. The smell of the slurry is better, stirring is much easier, and we have no more flies in the barn. This year we had almost tropical weather and neighboring farms couldn't fend off the flies. We had almost none. Even the vet asked us what we were doing in the barn because he was so amazed that we had no flies. And vet costs have gone down a lot."
Where can rock flour and zeolite be used in the barn and in the field?
"Through humus development, we came to rock flour, realizing that the soil needs lime and calcium and that soil life needs to be reactivated. And you notice something is happening. Most of all in the grassland, where we apply the slurry. I work with a disc spreader and you can clearly see the difference where the slurry doesn't reach. I added lime to the slurry. However, I will switch to spreading lime and zeolite in the barn already. That seems to be the easiest and already benefits the animals in the barn."
Feeding zeolite to dairy cows?
"I have also started feeding zeolite to the animals. We market yogurt and curd directly, and everyone says the taste is unique, there is no better milk. Our cell count has been safe for a long time now, because we also work with homeopathy here."
What does Steinkraft foliar fertilizer do?
No potato beetles and a very good potato harvest
"For potatoes this year, we used GRÜNKRAFT CALCIUM foliar fertilizer and AM+PLUS Active Microorganisms and had no potato beetles. We planted ¼ hectare of potatoes and if we found 10-15 beetles at all, that was a lot. In previous years, we really had a lot of beetles. And this year we had a very good potato harvest.
What fascinated me was when we went through the spray alley with the field sprayer - so after spraying - we saw that the plants had opened up so much that we couldn't even walk through properly. It's really joyful to see how quickly the plants react and you can see that the foliar fertilizer is good for them."
Plants green much longer and no wireworms
"AND the plants were green much longer. We had green potato plants 2-3 weeks longer than all the surrounding farms. We also had zero wireworms. It must be added that we already treated the potatoes with AM+ and zeolite when planting. We also stored the potatoes in AM+ and zeolite. I discovered this through old knowledge. My grandmother used to store potatoes in rock flour. They really last 3-4 weeks longer.
From 2000m² of field area, we got 5 tons of potatoes. That really inspired us. We were also thrilled with the kohlrabi. We harvested soccer ball-sized fruits that were not woody."
Bernhard and Helene Keplinger, Bad Leonfelden, Upper Austria
→ If you want to use zeolite in your own garden or in agriculture, you can find more information about its application and products on the page Zeolite for garden and soil improvement .
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