About Obstbau

Obstbau

Obstbau is the monthly specialist journal for commercial fruit growing in Germany and the official organ of the Fachgruppe Obstbau, the fruit-growing section of the Bundesausschuss Obst und Gemüse. Published since 1976, it is regarded as the leading German-language journal for the fruit-growing sector, serving orchardists, consultants, researchers and the upstream and downstream industries with cultivation technology, plant protection, irrigation, varieties and market developments. Its digital home at obstbau.org carries current news and focus topics alongside the print monthly.

Overview

Obstbau is a monthly German-language specialist journal (ISSN print 0179-7077) and the organ of the Fachgruppe Obstbau im Bundesausschuss Obst und Gemüse — the federal fruit-growing section within the German fruit and vegetable committee. The journal's editor is listed as Jörg Disselborg. As the sector's leading journal, it addresses the full professional fruit-growing community: commercial orchardists in the growing regions (Lake Constance, the Altes Land, Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and others), advisors at the chambers and state institutes, researchers at centres such as the Kompetenzzentrum Obstbau Bodensee in Bavendorf and the Esteburg fruit-growing centre in Jork, and the suppliers of plants, crop protection, irrigation technology and hail insurance. The print monthly is complemented by the obstbau.org portal, which publishes news, focus topics and new articles on a continuous basis — in October 2026, for example, on the German plum harvest, the Grünberg seminars 2026/2027, and the political dialogue for future-proof fruit growing. The association's contact is Claire-Waldoff-Straße 7, 10117 Berlin, telephone 030-200065-23.

History

The journal first appeared in 1976 as the organ of the Fachgruppe Obstbau, giving the organized commercial fruit growers their own monthly voice. Its founding came at a time when German fruit growing was intensifying: the post-war orchards were being converted to modern intensive plantations, integrated pest management was emerging, and the growers needed a dedicated channel for research results and practical guidance. Over five decades the journal has accompanied every transformation of the sector — the rise of controlled-atmosphere storage, the hail-net era, the shift to resistant varieties, the organic segment's growth, and the current adaptation to climate change with irrigation as a focus topic. The journal's lineage connects to a much older publishing tradition: the Württembergischer Obstbauverein published its own monthly Der Obstbau as early as 1881, and the regional associations' journals (Obst- und Gartenbau, Obst & Garten) document more than a century of organized fruit-growing communication in Germany. The modern Obstbau, published by the Fachgruppe Obstbau itself rather than a commercial publishing house, represents the sector's self-organization: the growers' own association as publisher, a model that guarantees the journal's closeness to practice.

Coverage and Content

The editorial programme covers the whole production chain of commercial fruit growing. Cultivation technology is the core: pruning, thinning, fertilization, irrigation — the June 2026 focus topic on irrigation treated the founding of irrigation associations, materials and technology, apple irrigation under climate change, and planning with an irrigation app, reflecting the sector's urgent adaptation to fluctuating rainfall. Plant protection is the second pillar: the March 2025 focus on beneficial organisms covered developments and obstacles in beneficial-insect use, monitoring against spider mites in protected berry cultivation, and beneficial strategies in outdoor berry production — the biological plant protection that looks back on nearly a hundred years of history in fruit growing. Stone fruit, pome fruit and berry fruit each get their seasonal coverage: the October 2026 plum-market report noted German plums dominating the market despite drought and heat depressing production below the strong previous year, with a mid-August weather turnaround boosting demand. Market and policy coverage includes the political dialogue "Wir sitzen in einem Boot" (we're in the same boat) for future-proof fruit growing, new guidelines for sustainable practice, and the training calendar with the Grünberg seminars. The October 2026 political expert discussion asked the sector's central question: how can fruit growing in Germany and Europe continue to produce high-quality food while meeting the rising demands of environmental, consumer and plant protection? The new guideline bundling current findings for sustainable fruit-growing practice, presented as the autumn apples were being harvested, framed the answer as a knowledge task — the work at the tree is only part of what ends up in the harvest. The apple-harvest reporting of 2026 showed the pressures: smaller cultivation area, frost and hail, heat and drought, plus alternation — the biennial rhythm of fluctuating yields — with the EU apple harvest estimated at 9.5 million tonnes, 16 percent below the previous year and the smallest since 2017, and Germany expecting around one million tonnes. The sector's self-sufficiency debate runs through the coverage: Germany's self-sufficiency in fruit has fallen to 20 percent, in apples to 48.7 percent, raising the question of whether German consumers still want domestic fruit. The journal covers this not as a lament but as the working context of its readers — the growers who must adapt to climate change, weather extremes and market pressure at once. Advertising comes from the sector's suppliers: hail insurers (Vereinigte Hagel), berry-plant nurseries (Kraege) and equipment manufacturers.

Organization and Ownership

Obstbau is published by the Fachgruppe Obstbau (Deutschland) — the fruit-growing specialist group within the Bundesausschuss Obst und Gemüse, the federal committee for fruit and vegetables. The editor is Jörg Disselborg. The association's office at Claire-Waldoff-Straße 7, 10117 Berlin (info@obstbau.org, 030-200065-23) is the journal's organizational home. The publisher model is the association journal: the Fachgruppe Obstbau represents the commercial fruit growers of Germany, and the journal is its official organ, financed through the association's membership and through subscriptions and advertising. This structure gives the journal a dual character: it is simultaneously the growers' advocacy voice in agricultural politics and their technical information service. The association organizes the sector's training and dialogue formats — the Grünberg seminars, the political expert discussions — and the journal reports on them, closing the loop between the association's work and its members' information needs. Detailed circulation and editorial-staff figures are not publicly confirmed in the sources available.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is obstbau.org, the portal of the Fachgruppe Obstbau, which carries the magazine's current journalism in a continuously updated news architecture: news and information, focus topics (Schwerpunktthemen) on irrigation and beneficial organisms, and new articles, each with teaser images, dates and read-more links. The October 2026 snapshot shows the portal in full operation: the plum-market report, the seminar announcements, the sustainability-guideline news and the political-dialogue report. Advertising banners from the sector's suppliers — hail insurance, berry plants — are integrated into the portal. The site's contact block lists the Berlin office address, email and telephone. The journal is indexed in the standard bibliographic systems under its ISSN 0179-7077 (print) and 0473-7369 (online), and the German Wikipedia documents it as the leading German fruit-growing journal. Between the monthly print journal and the continuously updated portal, Obstbau maintains the dual rhythm of the modern association medium: the monthly for depth, the portal for the season's news — from blossom to harvest. The portal's focus-topic architecture gives the digital offering a magazine-like depth: the irrigation focus bundles the association-founding guide, the materials-and-technology overview, the climate-necessity debate and the app-based planning aid into a single dossier, while the beneficial-organisms focus does the same for biological plant protection. The advertising integration — hail insurance and berry plants as the visible partners — reflects the economics of the sector: the risks (hail, frost, drought) and the inputs (plants, protection, technology) that define the grower's year. Published by the growers' own association since 1976, the journal remains what its Wikipedia entry calls it: the leading specialist journal for fruit growing in Germany, in print monthly and online daily.