Three stalks protrude from three clods of earth. Three times corn. Three times the same fruit. Or? The difference can only be seen when you touch it with your fingers, that two clods of earth appear quite dry and crumble coarsely. The third, on the other hand, on the far left, appears finely crumbly, soft and can be dented. This is how a first impression is made.
The ground is sometimes trampled on by feet. And so the owner of this floor placed the soil waist high. With a child you could say, at eye level: the farmer has set up a table in the middle of the meadow. On the table are three tubs with clods of earth and plant stems. And around the tables are men staring at stems.
Here corn, on the left in the picture a soil sample with six to seven percent humus, in the middle and on the right standard soil with four percent humus.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
The sun is shining over Hergolding near Vaterstetten. Here, on the Geigerhof, Thomas Unkelbach has been a farmer since 1998. The 41-year-old has been in this profession for more than half his life. But he does one thing very differently. Unusual in the industry. That’s why the Office for Food, Agriculture and Forestry Ebersberg-Erding invited him: Unkelbach has done without the plow for 20 years. Instead, he cultivates his 40 hectares with a so-called deep cultivator. The reason: This is how the earthworms survive in the soil, and they are one of the decisive factors in all his considerations.
“The excrement from the earthworm is highly fertile soil.”
Unkelbach stands in front of the tub with the soil samples. Green shirt, green cap, “passion for farming” is written on it. His hands are large, almost shovel-like. But when he lets the earth trickle through his fingers, there’s something nice about it. He says, “Human nourishment begins in the soil.” And that means: The higher the quality of the soil, the healthier the person.
“Human nutrition begins in the soil,” says farmer Thomas Unkelbach.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
And the earthworm. That’s what this is about, among other things. Earthworms collect important organic substances from the surface, transport them underground and excrete them there again. “The excrement from the earthworm is highly fertile soil,” says Unkelbach. So a floor can hardly get enough of it. But when the farmer comes with the plow in the spring, mass worm deaths take place in the soil.
The farmer runs his finger over a bean sprout, which he also grows in his fields. There are no earthworms to be seen on this sunny day, but the farmer’s family’s kittens hop across the yard, wrestle and roll through the meadow as if knotted together. They frolic over a soil in which the worm is in, and for once that’s meant positively here.
One of the very young court cats.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Earthworms can live for several years and become as thick as a finger. And farmer Unkelbach is convinced that the worms under his shoes are particularly old and particularly fat. Because he hasn’t ripped out the earth at a depth of 25 centimeters with the plow shears and turned it completely for 20 years. Instead, his instrument merely loosens the ground at a similar depth. This protects all the crawling down there, says the farmer. The question is: can this be measured? And if so, how?
“If you’re unlucky, the vet comes five days a week.”
Ask a young man who was once employed by Unkelbach in Hergolding. Peter Rauch, who now works as a farmer on his parents’ farm in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district. During this phone call at the end of July, the 26-year-old reported on his 20-week practical semester at the Geigerhof as part of his agricultural studies. That was in 2018, he was there from March to the end of July. At some point, he says, after a few weeks, “I asked myself why the vet never came to see us.” He knows it quite differently from other farms. “If you’re unlucky, the vet comes five days a week.”
Rauch’s balance sheet after five months: one sick animal. A calf had diarrhea and required IV fluids. “The vet was there once,” he says.
Back in the now, back to the Geigerhof. The farmer and the farmer’s wife Petra Unkelbach are now in the cowshed. 60 dairy cows, plus 45 young animals, all in loose housing. Conventional attitude. The company is not certified organic. According to the farmers, the reason for this is, among other things, that they would not have been able to continue operating their compost yard in this case. The compost should not be in the fields. The Unkelbachs looked for another method.
Petra and Thomas Unkelbach in their cowshed in Hergolding near Vaterstetten.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
The road to success was tough at times. There were steps backwards. Some innovations simply didn’t work. “I’ve learned a lot for years,” explains farmer Unkelbach. Yields fell, which is a disadvantage if the fields are mainly used for fodder for your own animals. But then the Unkelbachs learned something new, and in 2022 the breakthrough came. Or rather: Very clear indications that their method has been proven to work.
With the official takeover of the farm in 2015, the farmers started a soil analysis on their fields. Using soil samples, they have been checking the nutrient content for seven years and comparing it with conventional results. The result: the humus content is seven percent and is therefore almost twice as high as is usual in this region with similar soil situations.
A moo concert goes through the stable. Thomas Unkelbach is now distributing food. “My cows are living longer,” he says. The proportion of additives, he says, is very small with him. “The less concentrated feed, the less methane the cow emits.” The more humus, the more CO2 is bound in the soil. The humus soil as a climate saver, if you will.
One of the court cats.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Farmer Unkelbach takes off his cap. A cat claws at his pants. Yes, says Unkelbach, the extra effort that he and his wife put into it is considerable. In return, he leaves his children a floor they can work with. He steps out of the stable and pushes his cap over his forehead. Work awaits in the field.