Alexander Diethard

The small fields are surrounded by orchards, hedges and shrubs. The aim is to supply people in the region with bread, cereals and fruit products. The Diethard family took over the farm in 2022 from the original owner, who was very keen that the land should continue to be farmed in a way that protects the soil and that no heavy machinery should be used on his land. With this in mind, much of the Diethard family's farm work is done without a tractor. Due to the original farming methods with a lot of manual labour and a small-scale landscape, there is plenty of room for natural diversity. Structures such as heaps of branches, Benjes hedges and piles of stones have been deliberately created to provide a habitat for numerous animals. A fruit gene bank for the province of Salzburg is currently being created on the orchard meadows. It will be home to apple, pear, plum and cherry varieties that were native to Salzburg and neighbouring Upper Austria and Upper Bavaria 100 years ago and before. A stream runs across the property, which was laid underground in a pipe in the past. Alexander Diethard wants to bring this stream back to the surface and thus restore valuable wetland biotopes.