A gradual cultural change has been taking place in southern Germany for decades: the beet ghosts are disappearing and the Halloween pumpkins are taking their place.

Why actually?

Don't the fodder beets, one more crooked than the other, many with amusing adhesions that can be rededicated to the nose, better suit Germany, yes, the people themselves, than the pumpkins, which often look like painted?

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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Definitive. And yet the trend seems unstoppable. An inquiry to the Bavarian Farmers' Association not only shows that fodder beet was only grown on 312 hectares in the Free State of 2021, but also that the pumpkin population is significantly larger: Giant pumpkins were harvested on 639 hectares in 2021, plus 997 hectares of garden pumpkin land; No wonder, then, that every dinner invitation these days comes with pumpkin soup. The situation for the fodder beet is meanwhile so precarious that the farmers' association no longer even has a person responsible for it. The FAZ request therefore had to be processed by the consultant for potatoes and sugar.

Is the American way of life to blame for that too? The speaker has other explanations. They go in the direction of the laziness of the people, in a positive way: labor economy. Pumpkins are easier to hollow out than beets. Above all, however, there have long been attractive alternatives to beet as fodder. If the cows used to eat a lot of hay that had to be pepped up with something fresh, the fodder beet, the corn now takes over both. Its advantage: it is more mechanized and therefore more effortless to harvest than fodder beet and, as silage, it is easier and longer to store.

There are, however, people who, for the sake of tradition, stand up to the urge to rationalize. One of them is Ludolf Karletshofer, a 75 year old original from Meßhofen, a district of Roggenburg in the Neu-Ulm district. The committed home keeper, who used to run a farm with eight to ten dairy cows, says the beet ghosts came from the time when day laborers made soup from inside the beet and then sent their children to beg with the beet ghost illuminated by tallow. He also says: "The fodder beet is dying out because it is too much work."

Nevertheless - and although he and his wife have back problems - this year too he has grown around 300 fodder beets on a small field in his 2000 square meter garden behind the house, which he gives to the children free of charge.

Due to Corona, however, the beet ghost parade that has been taking place for decades had to be canceled.

Only the rabbits in the area were happy about this, as they received more beets than usual.