JOHANNA AND MARIE AT KALASAN NURSERY FARM IN PANGNA

About us

MARIE

Hi;) I´m Marie, 18 years old and I´m from Grossenhain, a small town in Saxony in the east of Germany. I finished highschool in July 2019 and I´m really interested in science and all things related to environment and climate change. I love reading, music, cats and travelling, but this is my first visit in India. In August 2019 I came here to collect some practical experience, to learn more about organic agriculture and environmental issues in general and to get to know the Indian culture, traditions and cuisine.

Maya Weltwarts
Johanna Pangna

JOHANNA

My Name is Johanna, I am 18 years old and just finished Highschool. Since I grew up in the middle of the green heart of Germany, I love the beauty of nature. Therefore I am interested in the environment and their issues our society is facing. Supporting organic farming and sustainable Fair-Trade products or rising awareness about climate change is one of the reasons why I decided to come to India as a volunteer. Personally I also think it is a good opportunity to get an insight in the Indian way of life and their traditions.

LIVING AT KNF

We are both living and working at the Kalasan Nursery Farm.
This farm is a family run nursery, which offers the latest variety of apple clonal rootstocks procured from Netherlands , Italy and USA, to promote high density apple farming in Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir and Uttarakhand. From a small beginning in 2003, Kalasan fruit farm has become the pioneer of high density apple farming and is today a model for aspiring orchardists.
The farm is situated near Pagna at the top of the mountain. It takes 30 Minutes to reach the village by foot.

ABOUT OUR WORK

In the last four months we had the opportunity to experience a lot and to take a close look on the different fields of farmwork and the connected office work. Especially this diversity in our work is what we appreciate.
We learned a lot about India, the traditions in Himachal and of course about High Density Apple Farming.

FARMWORK

  • plugging apples and vegetables
    • We learned about the the right technique to collect the apples. The important thing is to keep the stemps of the fruits, so they stay juicy.
  • Bending down the branches of the trees and painting the trunks of the apple trees
    • The training system is called “Tall Spindle System” and the white paint protects the trees from sunlight.
  • counting Rootstocks and making boundles for selling
    • The harvest season for the rootstocks started in the mid of december and we helped to count the different types and grades and made boundles out of 25, 50 or 100 Rootstocks, so the selling can start in January.

WORK WITH DIKSHA, AN ARCHITECT

    • Bamboo Frames
      • more information and photos here
    • Model of a Restaurant
      • we builded a little model out of cardboard, paper and bamboo to see the structure of a restaurant, which is planned to build at the farm

SOCIAL MEDIA

  • Promoting the #AppleFestival2019 in Delhi
  • Posting on KNF, DOFM, Gram Disha Trust and Jaivik Haat Facebook and Instagram
  • Writing Reports (e.g. Water Mills in HP)
  • Creating a campaign for the Apple Juice and promoting the product

WEBSITE

  • Adding new content (e.g. the page architecture and design) and images to this website, changing the design and updating it

WORKSHOPS

A workshop on High Density Apple Cultivation, Nursery Management, Soil Health, Organic Farming, Value Chains and market linkage – was organized by Gram Disha Trust and Kalasan Nursery Farm.
Farmers and Member of GIZ from Afganistan have enriched their knowledge.
We prepared a PowerPoint as a guidline for this workshop. Therefore we also learned a lot about apple farming.

OFFICE WORK

  • organizing of the booking orders
  • creating a brouchers about Kalasan Nursery Farm and High Density Apple Farming

DATA-COLLECTION

We helped Chet Ram Chetu to ask farmers about the problems they are facing when it comes to organic farming.
This gave us the possibility to visit two other cities in Himachal: Dharamshala and Manali.

SALE IN JANUARAY

  • The time of sale in January was a whole new experience to us (Maya and Marie).
    We learned a lot of things and got a very good overview about the process of the sale including:

    • Harvesting of the rootstocks and Apple Trees in the nursery
    • Packing of the ordered trees for the customers, documenting and writing labels
    • Management of the sale, like invoices, payments, functional teamwork
Johanna Marie