KernAktuell January 2019, News

Harvest 2018

The 2018 Austrian oil pumpkin harvest was below average – mainly because of the losses in Lower Austria.

In recent years the Austrian state with the largest area of arable land has also become the largest growing area for oil pumpkins. The climatic changes with extreme aridity in summer have caused farmers to favour this crop. But yields of even the drought-tolerant oil pumpkin fell sharply as a result of the prolonged dry spell in 2018. Because about 80% of the land on which Austrian organic oil pumpkins are grown is in Lower Austria, there could be a shortage of Austrian produce from controlled organic farming.

However, in some places in Styria and Burgenland the oil pumpkin harvest was above average. The situation with regard to the cultivation of oil pumpkins next year is not helped by the fact that maize yields were very good and that soya beans – which are becoming an increasingly popular crop – also did well. The combination of reasonable maize and soya bean prices and good harvests mean that growing oil pumpkins is a financially unattractive prospect for farmers.

 


Is the quantity situation about to reach tipping point?

Even though the 2018 harvest comes in the wake of the surpluses of previous years, the oversupply situation that is currently believed to exist will pass. At present farmers have no economic incentive to emphasize oil pumpkins in their crop sequence if there are no appropriate price incentives.

 

Harvest expectations of the Styrian scarlet runner bean PDO are met.

Yields of the last three harvests of Styrian scarlet runner beans PDO have been good. If harvests were to remain as consistent as this, it would make an enormous contribution to the ability to plan scarlet runner bean quantities.

 

Franz Wagnes
Leitung Feldproduktion

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Traditional Styrian
stamp press process

While modernity has brought progress in many areas, the traditional Styrian stamp press process is still the best way of making pumpkin seed oil. The main difference between this and other pressing methods is that we work with open roasting pans. At our plant, people check when the pumpkin seeds are perfectly roasted and so will yield the very best oil. This enables our experienced oil millers to produce the pumpkin seed oil that has won more prizes than any other – and which as a result of this type of pressing retains all the natural constituents. The untreated oil is not filtered; the particles that make it cloudy settle naturally when the oil is left to rest.

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