Christoph Denzel
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Christoph Denzel - Diploma I and MSc Organic Agriculture, graduated 2008.
Currently: Consultant for organic fruit growing, Ravensburg.
Ecological fruit growing advice
I work as a consultant for organic fruit growing at the Advisory Service for Organic Fruit Growing (BÖO), and I have actually been doing this since the end of my studies in 2008. To be more precise, I took a few months' parental leave after finishing my studies, while my wife Katrin was already working at the said Advisory Service. Due to a parental leave replacement at the BÖO (namely that of my wife) and the resignation of a colleague, I slipped quasi accidentally into fruit growing, a discipline that is little noticed in Witzenhausen, since it is located in horticulture.
The BÖO is a voluntary association of organic fruit growers with the objective of offering independent advice that is committed to organic fruit growers. Together with a colleague, I am responsible for advising BÖO members on Lake Constance, one of the most important fruit-growing regions in Germany. And anyone who has ever spent a vacation there knows: there are (almost) only apples.
Expert advice and trade journals
We are called upon to offer and further develop a broadly based, production-oriented advisory service with a clear focus on plant health, one could also say "plant protection". This focus is flanked, because otherwise plant protection advice in organic fruit growing is not conceivable, by many other questions of cultivation, such as fertilization, variety selection, education, biodiversity, soil cultivation and much more.
To convey this content, we offer members individual consulting appointments at the farm. They receive an advisory letter and can pester us with all kinds of questions on the phone at any time. In addition, we organize group meetings in order to use the exchange of experiences among farmers as a format for consulting and to offer a framework for general collegial exchange for the members.
In addition, we advisors are entrusted with the day-to-day management of the association, a striking symbol of the special relationship of trust between the board, members and advisors. And we are (co-)responsible for the editorial content of the trade journal "Öko-Obstbau". In this function, but also as an advisor who wants to know everything, I call out to the students: "Read trade journals!"
Now the question arises, what does an agricultural scientist have to report in organic fruit growing? And yes, I had to familiarize myself intensively and for a long time with a profession that was completely unknown to me at the time. Nevertheless, I maintain that I, who had no agricultural background, would also have had to familiarize myself intensively with agricultural consulting, for example with the highly specialized consultants in potato cultivation.
Equipment and methodical qualification
The indispensable tools for this, namely the ability to be able to constructively accept unknown contexts and new challenges in terms of content with a solid professional and methodological qualification, that is what Witzenhausen gave me. I completed my time in Witzenhausen with a Master's degree in "Ecological Agriculture." Before that, I had still earned the Diplom 1 for the associated degree program in "Ecological Agriculture" in Witzenhausen, but actually studied the first three semesters in Göttingen first.
But how is a toolkit taught that eludes the grasp of lecture and credit? I am thinking of the teaching format of the tutorial on compost with Christian Schüler or the foreign excursions with Holger Mittelstraß and the versatile conferences. I think of the internship at FiBL Switzerland, in terms of content actually a bridge to my professional work, and the Erasmus semester in Aberystwyth, Wales. And I think of seminars like the phytopathological field course with Maria Finckh, the nutrient cycles with Jürgen Heß and the lecture there by Sepp Braun, or the policy field of organic agriculture in the EU with Christian Henschke. All this was a totally exciting melange of well-founded basic knowledge, an always respectful interest in the practical work of the farmers, the invitation to think outside the box and the desire to experiment with unconventional formats.