Multiplicators
Professionalism and a sense of responsibility are prerequisites for seed production. Both are characteristics of the members of SAATBAU LINZ. Since the foundation of the cooperative, seed multiplication has been in the good and reliable hands of our farmers.
Our seed multiplicators are serviced by specifically trained employees of the cooperative. Every year, 350 varieties of 37 different crops and 96 organic varieties of 30 crops are multiplied in selected climatic zones in Austria and its neighbouring countries. Thanks to this multiplication on about 19,000 hectares – 14,400 hectares conventional and 4,600 organic – the production of raw seed material is perfectly secured.
Purity, healthiness and germination capacity – these three criteria must be fulfilled at the highest level. Seed quality tolerates no compromise.
An interview with Hannes Hutterer
Multiplicator for SAATBAU LINZ
The Hutterer family from Raabs an der Thaya has been a member of SAATBAU LINZ since 1993. They regularly multiplicate winter and summer cereal. In 2012, Hannes Hutterer, took over the farm from his parents. Since 1997 he has been a delegate of SAATBAU LINZ.
Your family looks back on a long tradition as seed multiplicators. What are the crops that you multiply? What is it that you have to pay special attention to with the individual crops?
We work mainly with winter triticale, summer wheat and winter rye. The Waldviertel region is a traditional rye cultivation area. When we multiplicate, we have to make sure there is enough distance between ours and other rye fields. Rye is a cross-pollinating cereal, which means that it would also fertilise with other varieties. This would endanger the purity of the variety to be multiplicated. Winter triticale is well suited to serve as a spacer between two fields. Additionally, it is high-yielding and ideally suited for our region. By multiplicating summer wheat, we try to avoid too high a peak in workload in the autumn.
The area your farm is located in is not ideally suited for agriculture. How does this impact your crop management? What are the advantages of the Waldviertel region with regard to the quality characteristics of rye, poppy seeds, oat …?
With winter cereal and winter rape, special attention must be given to an optimum development before the winter. It is crucial, not to sow too late because of very long foggy periods in late autumn, i.e. little sunshine and low temperatures. In the spring, vegetation often starts later. Last year, we had late frosts until mid-May (night temperature on 9 May was -1.5 °C) which caused damage to the leaves of summer wheat and summer barley. The Waldviertel region is an arid zone, with sometimes very pronounced drought periods in the late spring. Rye is undemanding and copes well with these conditions.
Where do you see yourself and your business in the next five years?
From a current point of view, it doesn’t make sense to enlarge the operation. We will focus on investments into maintaining the status quo.
From the Field to the Plate
Our value chain
Research
SAATBAU LINZ invests 5 % of its annual turnover in reseach and development of new plants.
Breeding
Successful breeding is the basis for continuous development and adaptation of the varieties in order to be able to effectively react to new challenges such as climate change.
Variety
Product development is closely linked to breeding and is responsible for selecting the most successful varieties for certification.
Multipliers
With utmost diligence, the members of the cooperative multiply seeds produced by SAATBAU LINZ.
Quality control
The incoming seeds are subject to a strict quality control. The examination of the seeds starts when the harvests are delivered and comes to an end when the seeds receive the national approval certification.
Farmers
We supply our farmers with seeds for all crops and offer interesting contracts for taking over harvests.
Erntegut
We establish reliable contract chains from farmers all the way to processers thereby ensuring quality in our nutrition.
Food
With the food division, SAATBAU is one of the most important raw material suppliers to the Central European food industry.
