Almost 19 years ago, Monika and Walter Dauchenbeck founded the parent company of the family business in Fürth-Atzenhof near Nuremberg. The new garden world in Stein-Oberweihersbuch near Nuremberg was opened on 01 March 2018. The daughters Mirja and Christina manage the 6,000 square meter garden center.

Gardening roots
Mirja Dauchenbeck tells: „We want to be a floor-standing family business for our customers, with the focus on people. This applies both to our valued employees and to our many regular customers, for whom we are very grateful. We attach great importance to competent, friendly employees who provide authentic and personal advice. We want to inspire our customers. We are happy to give tips and expert advice, so that our customers can make their home a nice place and find a better quality of life. It is important to us that our horticultural roots are perceptible through our own production and through a wide range of high-quality plants.“

High-quality in-house production
The Dauchenbeck family produces a full range of indoor and outdoor plants all year round. The in-house production comprises 13,500 m² of high glass and 1.2 hectares of open land. Ecologically sustainable plant cultivation, peat-reduced soil and intensive use of beneficial insects are a matter of course. The Multikraft system is also an integral part of the near-natural in-house production.
„We were not successful with the use of beneficial insects and did not want to return to purely chemical crop protection. We want to produce naturally, also with regard to the health of the employees during application and subsequent work with the plants. Our master craftsman Mario Witte therefore dealt with the subject of plant strengthening, visited the information day at Multikraft in January 2018 and after consulting Multikraft expert Günther Soukup started off with a starter package of Multikraft components,“ says Mirja Dauchenbeck, describing the introduction of Multikraft technology to the company.

Better root penetration
Master gardener and plant manager Mario Witte and his employees implemented the system in the plant and explained the regular Multikraft system applications: „Before each new occupation of our areas, we spray them including the energy screens and blackouts with BB Soil in a 10 % mixture. We also use BB Soil regularly for watering the young plants after potting. In each irrigation cycle, BB Soil and Terrafert Soil run along with the irrigation water.“ Since then, the plants have been rooting in the pots much better and faster.
A weekly spray with components such as Terrafert Foliar, BB Foliar and MK 5 is carried out to strengthen the plants. The dosage varies according to the current needs of the plants. Coupled with the intensive advice on Multikraft technology application, the origin of the beneficial organisms was also changed.

90 % less fungicides
The company was able to achieve considerable success right from the start, as it saved around 90 % on fungicides in its first year of operation. „We were really pleasantly surprised,“ says Mario Witte, who also sees the Multikraft system as a great help for the entire team.

„In the past, we used to apply crop protection after work and several applications were necessary. Such overtime is now a thing of the past because we can apply the Multikraft technology components during the day. With the Multikraft system we can, for example, combine MK 5 for the prevention of insect pests and BB Foliar preventively against mildew, thus reducing the output to one operation. Our employees see it positively that they have less work to do in the medium term and less contact with chemistry. That‘s the very nice thing about the whole story,“ Mario Witte and Mirja Dauchenbeck summarize:

„The combination of plant strengthening and prophylaxis through the Multikraft system, regular monitoring and a sensible use of beneficial insects has almost completely made us do without conventional chemical pesticides and made our business healthier and certainly fit for the future. We want to promote an appropriate, natural and non-toxic cultivation method that provides our employees with better working conditions and provides our customers with robust, flowering and healthy plants.“