Apples in Bavaria: Orchards offer wealth, but where to harvest?

Apples in Bavaria: Orchards offer wealth, but where to harvest?

There is reason to be happy this year in beautiful Bavaria: the apple harvest has achieved a strong increase of 13.5 percent. A total of 31,500 tons of apples are waiting to be used, but the question remains: where should they go? Welt reports that apples are well marketed by professional fruit growers, while the fruits are often sold on roadsides and in orchards remain unused. In this context, one might ask how nature's untapped treasures can be put to better use.

A major problem is that picking apples from other people's trees is usually not permitted because ownership is unclear. An exception is the Wunsiedel district, where trees are marked with a yellow band to signal that the apples are accessible to everyone. In Bayreuth, citizens are also allowed to pick in municipal orchards, but only for their own use and without aids such as ladders.

Orchards – an important habitat

Orchards are more than just a producer of fruit; they are a valuable element of the Bavarian cultural landscape. The Bavarian State Institute for Agriculture (LfL) is responsible for the care and promotion of these cultural landscapes. As part of the Bavarian Scattered Fruit Pact, the aim is to plant one million new fruit trees in Bavaria by 2035. This initiative not only offers an opportunity to preserve vegetable diversity, but also biodiversity in orchards.

The LfL helps to promote the importance, planting and care of orchards. It also provides information materials and supports regional orchard events and experiences. A good network of experts is available to municipalities to provide targeted support for the use of orchards.

Looking for exploitation opportunities

With regard to the apples produced, more intensive use of the fruit could be of fundamental importance. The Bavarian wine presses are urgently looking for local fruit to maintain their production. Markus Nagler from the Bavarian Fruit Juice Association calls on consumers to buy regional products in order to support both the environment and the local economy. Horticultural associations in Bavaria have also offered solutions so that citizens can have their own apples processed into apple juice - a tasty way to put fruit to good use.

The question remains: How is the topic of “fruit picking” treated by the general public? With over 250,000 hectares of orchards, Germany is Europe's number one orchard country. However, there are clear rules about when and where you can pick fruit. According to the Federal Nature Conservation Act, harvesting in the wild is permitted as long as it falls within the scope of the manual bouquet regulations, i.e. only small quantities can be picked. The digital platform mundraub.org offers the opportunity to harvest locally and legally, which shows the locations of fruit trees that are intended for harvesting.

In order to further promote the recycling of apples, experts emphasize the importance of recycling options and educational work. If citizens understand how and where they are allowed to pick, we could perhaps soon be talking about uniform and enjoyable use of apples in Bavaria. Ultimately, this would be a win-win situation for everyone involved: nature, agriculture and consumers.