The Obstbauliche Versuchsanstalt Jork (OVA) – the fruit research station. Photograph taken in 1970
The Obstbauliche Versuchsanstalt Jork (OVA), the fruit research station, moved into this custom-built building in 1935. The director at the time, Professor Loewel, began his work by combatting the fungus apple scab, then as now the most prolific fungus affecting apples in the Lower Elbe region. Infestation by apple scab and leaf spot led to the gradual decline of fruit growing in this region during the 1920s. This made the production of healthy fruit no longer possible, in spite of the fact that the Lower Elbe region was first mentioned as a fruit-growing area in a document dated 1320. The OVA was set up in 1935 to improve the situation, as a regulated experimental and counselling entity. Its success was soon seen in the local farms. Practical pest and fertilisation tests were carried out. The OVA continued to develop in the fruit-growing research and consultancy fields.
Another important reason why this fruit-growing region is so successful today is that, at the end of the 1980s, a crop protection and pest management concept was developed with the help of the OVA, known as “integrated crop protection”. It specified that the use of chemical pesticides and fungicides be reduced to a minimum, along the lines of “as much as necessary but as little as possible”. It enabled the farmers’ association Öko-Obstbau Norddeutschland e.V. to find its niche.
In the summer of 2000 the newly-founded Fruit Research and Consulting Centre (the Obstbau-, Versuchs- und Beratungszentrum, OVB) moved to the Esteburg in Jork-Moorende. This left space for building assisted accommodation in its stead.
