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Transnational Partner Meeting 4 – Hungary

Report

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Based in the visitor centre of the Ecological Institute in Gömörszőlős, Hungary

March 9-11 2022

 

Participants

Ivan, Katalin, Eva, Maria, Peter and Ildiko from Hungary

Adam and Martin from the UK

Ela, Artur and Jolanta from Poland

 

Tuesday March 8th

Afternoon - Arrival in Gömörszőlős

 

Some participants were driven by Katalin Hudak from Miskolc through the Bukk National Park, with its magnificent beech forest - possibly the largest beech forest in the world. This is the second largest national park in Hungary. Much of the timber is used to make IKEA furniture. The Across Hungary Blue Walking Route passes through the national park as well as the small village of Gömörszőlős.

 

Participants were welcomed at the Institute's Gömörszőlős Visitor Centre with a warming glass of quince palinka at 52 % alcohol! The centre is based near the Aggteleki national park, famous for its karst landscape and limestone caves - one of which is 22 km long and passing into Slovakia. The small village of 70 residents is 2 km from the Slovakian border and about 100 km from the Ukrainian border. Much discussion during the visit was about the Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing to both Hungary and Poland.

The meeting was hosted by Dr. Ivan Gyulai, the Director of the Ecolinst Centre. During the visit he particularly emphasised and described the weekly courses that are offered by the centre. There are three types of weekend courses.

• The deep mulch course introduces beginners (often from cities) to composting , mulching orchard trees, companion planting and plant guilds, as well as natural ways of protecting fruit trees.

• The garden planning course explores biodiversity, fruit trees and climate-friendly approaches to gardening and managing the home.

• The advanced mulch course covers the ecology and management of natural orchards and fruit trees.

Ivan has produced about 40 videos which are on the Ecolinst Youtube channel. The three 40 minute videos produced for the CORE project are about natural orchards.

Half of the course participants are from Budapest, some are middle-aged and young people who have moved to grow food in a rural area, and some are Hungarians returning visiting from abroad. The centre also hosts meetings of orchardists such as the Carpathian Basin orchard network.

Wednesday March 9th

 

Morning - Visit to Fruit Processing centre in the village of Trizs

The mayor of the village introduced us to the new fruit processing centre. It was funded by the local authority to provide rural employment and enterprise for the village which is based one of the most disadvantaged rural areas of Hungary. The social enterprise is a cooperative with 21 local shareholders and four female staff. Fruit and herbs are delivered to the processing centre where they are made into a very wide range of fruit syrups (or cordials), jams and other fruit products. The centre is trying to diversify the products, with quince flavoured chocolates as one of their new developments. The products are sold in the village shop as well as online through their new website.

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The challenges seem to be to purchase electrical machines that suit the staff, as well as identifying the best points of sale and marketing channels. The staff recognise that the village has many older people often with neglected orchards. So a key community challenge is to encourage more young people to continue the tradition and culture of producing and processing orchard fruit. There seem to be new opportunities for selling products to local tourist as well as to cities.

 

Afternoon – Introductions and visitor centre of the Ecological Institute

The participants each introduced their interests and experience in fruit trees and orchards. The partners provided a quick update on progress with the translations of the Guide and Case Studies. We also reviewed the progress of the project since the third TMP, and discussed how to disseminate the project results.
 

The visitor centre was set up to demonstrate a range of renewable and sustainable technologies. The new visitor centre building was built as an autonomous, passivhaus. It has triple glazed windows with argos gas in the cavity. The walls have a big 40 cm cavity with a lower U value than the new EU standard of 0.12.

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A large brick masonry stove provided all the heat in the visitor centre. It was lit for a short time and then carried on providing hear from the centre of the building over the next two days. It has 1000 kg of materials, mainly bricks, and 11 m of pipe to circulate warm air around the brick masonry. The design originated in Scandinavia with two chambers one to burn the wood at 500 deg C and, crucially, another to burn the gas at 1,200 deg C. Efficient stoves burn all the gas as well as wood

 

A rocket stove was set up as a demonstration. It originated in Russia and the Baltic but is now also popular in the US. It only provides heat for a day but is more efficient that a masonry stove and is about 5% of the cost of a masonry stove. Clear diagrams on the wall provided an explanation of the heat flow of both the masonry and rocket stoves.

 

In the grounds of the centre was a well developed compost toilet. Its operation was described by Ivan in great biological and technical detail. It is designed as a dry toilet with sawdust added after each use to give a nitrogen to carbon ration of 1:30 suitable for decomposing microbes. A compost toilet save energy and water as it is a closed system. This gives an end product of water and CO2. One of the main challenges is getting enough air into the system.

 

The new accommodation building has walls made from climate bricks with a big wall cavity providing high heat retention with no additional insulation. The roof tiles have integrated solar cells providing renewable energy.

 

The solar wood drier is stacked with cut logs which dry at about 40 deg C in one month compared to 3 years under normal storage. The solar fruit drier is heated by rising hot air from black beer can tubes under clear perspex. The heat rises into a wooden cone of about 4 wire mesh trays of fruit which is dried at no more than 40 deg C to retain the vitamin content for about 2 days.
 

Thursday March 10th

 

Morning -Visit to the House of Fruit Traditions in the village of Bódvaszilas

This was hosted by Krisztián Koleszár, whose family owned the heritage orchard and developed the house as a rural museum celebrating the local area, orchards and Hungarian life. The neighbouring house of fruit traditions, owned by a doctor, has been developed as a holiday let. The museum was particularly focused on the local history of fruit trees and orchards and included a display of a local pomologist. We tasted a variety of apples from the fruit cellar and explored the apples, pears and plums in the heritage orchard.

 

Afternoon - Visit to the fruit products in the Gömörszőlős village shop

The shop was managed by Ivan’s daughter Eva. She has moved back to the Gomor district with her husband and young son after living in Budapest and running a translation business. She explained that the fruit, flower and herb syrup products are collected and processed in her father’s home. She matches colour and taste to the interests and decor of her clients as a form of culinary art.

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Evening - Discussion

There was much discussion on fruit products and drinks as well as about organic fruit growing and natural orchards. We also discussed how we would disseminate the results of the project.

 

Friday March 11th

 

Morning - Visit to the ancient orchard of Gömörszőlős

This ancient orchard on the high slopes of the Gomor region covers about 15 hectares. It is owned by various villagers as well as the local authority. The Ecolinst Centre has leased 5 ha of the orchard for research and education. The whole orchard has been neglected for many years so it provides a great natural laboratory for study.

 

Natural Orchards Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vvI7TvhwMg

Natural Orchards Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbOQ3yqLo5M

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Afternoon - Visit to Ivan's garden to discuss the deep mulch approach

The garden and orchard uses the deep mulch system developed by Ivan. Straw, hay and wood chip mulch, often to a depth of 30-60 cm is used to retain moisture, support soil biota and inhibit competitive plant growth. Seeds and potatoes are sown under the mulch. Deep mulch is also provided 1 m around each of the fruit trees but not adjacent to the trunks. The straw and hay was grown on adjacent fields. A large scale trial of scattering a mix of fruit tree seed under deep mulch was just being developed in to grow fruit trees as naturally as possible.
 

Evening – Social evening with Hungarian dancing

The meeting finished with a fantastic display of traditional Hungarian dancing by three costumed local performers, followed by a workshop teaching us all some of the basic social dances form the region. Great fun was had by all.

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