The history of the United States is a history lined with apple trees. Early European settlers in America brought with them apple seeds, which they planted to begin the first orchards. Apples were a fruit of survival at the time, storing well and serving as both food and, in the form of cider, drink.

After the Revolutionary War, apples proliferated across the frontier. The legend of Johnny Appleseed is the story of a real man, John Chapman, who planted apple seedlings across what is now Appalachia and north into Ontario, Canada. Most homesteads up and down and across the expanding United States had several apple trees, if not full orchards. They were planted for food, to produce new trees to sell and for the production of hard cider, which was one of the most common drinks consumed in colonial America. 

By the 1900s, apples had fallen out of favor. The introduction of prohibition eliminated the market for hard cider, and as railroads transformed transportation across the country, the market changed. Now, a few large apple orchards, growing only one or two varieties of apples, control the apple market. Today, 22 percent of apples sold in US grocery stores are the variety Gala, and most supermarkets offer only a few varieties. The backyard apple tree was left to grow wild—until a recent surge in interest in heritage varieties and hard cider production.

As scraggly and unkempt as an old apple tree may appear, it can still be a stellar start to an orchard or a fruitful addition to a family homestead. 

“Planting new trees is going to take some years before they’re mature and fruit bearing,” says Jennifer Ries, who coordinates the tree nursery department at Fedco, a tree and seed cooperative out of Clinton, Maine. “With these old trees, we have gifts from anonymous strangers of the past who planted these trees for particular reasons.”

Old tree discovery and restoration was once the purview of dedicated pomologists such as John Bunker, author of Not Far From the Tree, and Dan Bussey, author of The Illustrated History of Apples in the United States and Canada. Bunker would travel the backroads of Maine and knock on the doors of old farmhouses with peeling paint and sagging roofs. He would scout the property for aging apple trees and, if he found them, collect fruit and cuttings. He has worked to identify more than 500 cultivars in his ongoing career.

A restored orchard of heritage apple trees. (Photo credit: Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project)

But today, it is more than just a few of the apple-obsessed who are discovering and rehabilitating old trees. The surging popularity of hard cider has inspired farmers to revitalize old orchards and plant new ones, and even single backyard trees are benefiting from the renewal.

“We get a lot of emails from cider makers,” says Amy Dunbar-Wallis, a graduate student at the University of Boulder in Colorado and community outreach coordinator for the Boulder Apple Tree Project. “And we hear from homeowners who have apple trees on their land and want to be cider makers.”

Organizations such as the Boulder Apple Tree and nearby Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project, as well as the Maine Heritage Orchard in Maine, the Lost Apple Project in Washington and the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Oregon, have grown in the past decade to support curious homeowners and passionate arborists alike.

If you have a homestead with an ancient apple tree in the backyard or perhaps a small orchard full of leaning, bending and twisting trees, it is possible to reclaim the productivity of those trees. According to Ries, apple trees can produce bountiful crops for 200 years, so some of those homestead trees may just be getting started.

Identify the tree

You can restore an aging apple tree and appreciate its fruits without ever discovering what variety it is, but testing a tree to discover its lineage will help you understand its unique qualities and may help apple historians in their quest for “new old” varieties. Identification can help connect you through time with the farmers who originally planted the tree by understanding if they used the fruit for cider or cold storage or ate it fresh.

“There are thousands and thousands of cultivars in the US,” says Dunbar-Wallis. Some cultivars can be identified by comparing fruit to old records and old paintings, but there are more high-tech options available now. “We are able to take just a few leaves when they first emerge, fresh in the spring. We send them off to Washington State, where they are able to do some DNA analysis of those leaves and compare them to datasets in Europe. That allows us to figure out not only what the tree is but who its parents and grandparents are and figure out where all of these different cultivars fit into the overall pedigree of apples.”

You may discover you have any number of common homestead apple varieties or you may have something truly rare on your land. Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer of the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project have discovered varieties of apples where only one single tree of that cultivar remains. Among them was the Colorado Orange, a fruit that was part of state lore for its unique color, flavor and late ripening. 

First pruning

Most trees discovered on old homesteads require an initial pruning to remove dead growth and allow the tree unencumbered sunlight. The first steps in rehabilitating a tree include removing any brush or brambles that are overcrowding it and cutting out any larger limbs that have died or show signs of disease.

“The best thing you can do for old trees is some dead wood pruning,” says Laura Seeker, who works on old apple tree restoration for Fedco and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. “Get out anything that’s dead, decaying, diseased and damaged. Do any clearing out you can in the canopy so that the tree just has live growth.”

Annual pruning

After initial canopy clearing and deadwood removal, the key to a happy apple tree is annual pruning. This encourages the tree to focus its energy on fruit production by removing some of its new growth, and it also allows it to get the maximum energy possible from the sun by keeping it from shading itself out.

“Once we’ve got the canopy cleared up, that opens up the tree’s photosynthesizing,” says Mike Biltonen of Know Your Roots LLC, which specializes in the holistic restoration of old orchards. “At that point, we want to keep it on a maintenance schedule, pruning every year or every other year and addressing any serious issues. We don’t want to do anything to shock it in those first few years, and we don’t want it to lose its wild or feral nature or its uniqueness of being an abandoned or lost tree.”

Pruning a fruit tree during the dormant season benefits the overall health of tree and can increase fruit yields. (Photo credit: Kirsten Lie-Nielsen)

Annual pruning to keep the tree in top shape usually takes place in late February or early March, when the first signs of early buds begin to appear. 

“Apples really like to be pruned,” says Dunbar-Wallis, “So, during the dormant months, you are going to want to snip the new growth. The new growth is going to grow at a 90-degree angle to the original branch, and you want to snip new growth.”

Tree cloning

When you are pruning your tree, you can begin to start a new orchard from the old variety by taking clones from the tree. Apple tree clones are created by taking a pruned “sucker” or new year’s stem of growth from the original tree and grafting it to rootstock. Rootstock is apple grown from seed, and it is available from most tree nurseries.

“It’s very endearing,” says Seeker, “because, sometimes, there’s a young, young tree of the same variety planted next to an old tree. That old tree is not going to live forever. But having a little replacement there that’s grafted from the same tree is a really nice gesture to leave for whoever inhabits this land. We have these varieties because generation after generation was here grafting, selecting for what works for this climate and what works for our palates. And so, we get to continue doing that, selecting which varieties are still working for us and planting those out and leaving them as something for future generations.”

Trees from seeds

Apple trees do grow from seed, but as a heterozygous species, their seeds do not produce the same variety of apple as the tree from which they came. When you first start rehabilitating a tree, you can look for a graft line to understand if it was selected and planted by arborists of the past or if it might have been grown from seed. Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman famously only grew apples from seed in spite of their unpredictability, but most seedling trees are the remnants of a meal consumed by a coyote or a deer.

“Even on very old trees,” says Ries, “sometimes, you can still see signs [of a graft line] by the way the bark is there—there might be a bulge or there might be a change in the bark direction.”

But if your tree is a seedling, that does not mean its fruit cannot produce something delicious. Some believe that Appleseed planted from seed because he was growing for hard cider production, and the flavors of “wild” apples can be particularly unique for cider pressing. 

“Feral or wild varieties have quite a bit of bioregional resilience,” says Biltonen. “They may have more resilience to their current location and to the climate issues we are dealing with.”

***

Learn more:

Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project. Located in Colorado, MORP is dedicated to the restoration of old apple trees. Its website includes an extensive online handbook on heritage orchard management

MyFruitTree.org. Offers DNA testing for apple trees and other identification helpers.

Fedco Trees. Fedco supplies heritage and rare trees to farmers around the country as saplings and offers rootstock for grafting your own clones. 

If you’re unsure about beginning the pruning process, contact a local arborist. You can often find ones that specialize in apple trees and will be happy to help you. Companies such as Mike Biltonen’s Know Your Roots LLC specialize in holistic restorations of orchards and apple trees. 

Read more:

Not Far From the Tree by John Bunker. Carefully illustrated and painstakingly researched, this book chronicles the history of apple trees in the Waldo County region of Maine.

The Illustrated History of Apples in the United States and Canada by Dan Bussey. Seven volumes comprehensively document the apple tree’s history in North America. 

The post Making Old Orchards New Again appeared first on Modern Farmer.

We also asked readers what questions they had for agroforesty experts. Here’s what you wanted to know, with answers provided by Savanna Institute executive director Keefe Keeley:

Q: How can I incorporate agroforestry practices into my small home garden?

A: Agroforestry practices help us think about how woody, perennial shrub plants can be incorporated into farming systems, as well as how food production can be achieved in forested environments. This can help you with your gardening as well. If your yard or garden is heavily shaded, you may be able to grow plants or mushrooms used in forest farming, which takes place under a closed canopy. If you are limited by space, you could consider growing perennial woody shrubs such as elderberries or black currants, which can begin producing berries in 2-3 years. Agroforestry invites us to think about how systems connect. Your plants could help provide a windbreak or visual barrier, habitat for wildlife and pollinators and food for your table all at the same time.

Q: If you want to plant an orchard with a guild but are limited on resources, which plants should be prioritized?

A: While plant selection will vary based on your specific location and goals, some agroforestry species have notable intercropping potential. Black currants and pawpaws are two examples of shade-tolerant species that can grow well with other types of trees. You can see examples of groupings used by other farms on our website and YouTube channel.

Q: How do you keep deer from eating the trees and shrubs (aside from building a giant cage fence around each one)? We would like to reforest a section of our property, but can’t imagine caging that many trees.

A: We are experimenting with a few different deer-deterrent strategies at our demonstration farms. We have had success with using five-foot high tree tubes for each tree (which offers other benefits as well) and with 3D deer fence: two separate electrified fences set three to four feet apart. This creates “depth” and makes it difficult for the deer to jump over them.

Elderberries are a hardy perennial crop that has been harvested by humans for centuries. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Q: What equipment do you use to dig holes to plant trees? A spade and rocky ground is hard-going.

A: We use a variety of equipment for planting woody shrubs. Depending on what is being planted and the soil quality, this could include a trencher and tree planter pulled behind a tractor, a PTO-driven post hole digger or some of the modified precision ag equipment we are experimenting with on our demonstration farms. You can learn more and see examples on our YouTube channel.

Q: Any sources for chestnuts? Seems that most nurseries in Canada are always sold out.

A: One of the biggest challenges to expanding agroforestry is the shortage of plant material currently available for purchase and planting. That’s why we launched a nursery with our partners Canopy Farm Management, which offers tree planting and plant material in the region. As members of the Agroforestry Coalition, we also work with others across the country to improve nursery stock availability and production.

Q: I know chestnuts prefer well-drained soils. How can those of us on more poorly drained soil grow the highest-value tree crop? Is there any research about using swales or planting in fields with drainage tiles?

A: “We are working with Canopy Farm Management to develop a series of mapping tools to help people identify areas of their land that would be most suitable—or unsuitable—for different agroforestry crops. These will be available later this year. Drainage tiles (which are common in Midwest farm fields) are a concern for many growers. We do not have much research or experience growing chestnuts with drainage tiles, but we’re working to learn more.”

Q: What are three of the fastest-growing trees for an emerging Southern California food forest?

A: Since most of our work is focused on the US Midwest, I would refer you to some of our collaborators in the southwest region. This video by the Quivira Coalition featuring Roxanne Swentzell could offer some insights. 

Q: Is there a comparable program [to SI] to help new farmers enter into agroforestry, including forest farming, in [a] mountain area of Maryland?

A: We are partnering on a new Expanding Agroforestry Project with Virginia Tech, which is working in Maryland. You should also check out Appalachian Sustainable Development, which is working to support agroforestry and forest farming in your region.

American chestnut tree flowering in spring. (Photo: Shutterstock)

In addition to reader questions, Keeley offered answers to three of the questions the Savanna Institute hears most frequently:

Q: Where can I find plants?

A: Talking with your local conservation specialists is often the best way to find plant sources that are a good fit for your location. The nation-wide Agroforestry Coalition has identified nursery stock and plant availability as a key bottleneck in expanding agroforestry production, so certain crops and varieties can be hard to find. We work closely with Canopy Farm Management, which offers agroforestry crops suited for the Midwest. For more nurseries in your area, check out the National Nursery and Seed Directory.

Q: Where/how can I sell my products?

A: In any farm enterprise, it’s important to identify market opportunities in advance and design your operation with these in mind. Farms using agroforestry sell products through the market channels all farms use—they just have more trees at work benefiting the crops and livestock on their farms. On some farms, the trees provide the primary crops: fruits, nuts, timber and other tree products. These farms sell their products through U-pick businesses, direct-to-consumer sales and regional wholesale distributors. Many tree crops are best sold as value-added products, which entails additional processing costs but can open up additional marketing opportunities.

Q: How do I find land to do agroforestry?

A: If you are thinking about planting tree crops, you will need long-term access to land to reap the full benefits of your investment. This is a significant obstacle for most beginning agroforestry farmers. Developing a detailed business plan and building relationships in your local community are important steps towards achieving this goal. Our new interactive guide, Designing An Effective Long-Term Agroforestry Lease, helps you work through key considerations for acquiring long-term access to land.

Do you have more questions for the Savanna Institute? Check out its “Ask an Agroforester” page for more frequently asked questions and to submit your own.

The post Your Questions About Agroforestry, Answered appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Meet some Midwestern agrarians, some of whom come from conventional farming families, who are using their land to reestablish the connection between trees, animals, and food production.

Wendy Johnson’s ‘natural savannah’

Wendy Johnson and her husband, Johnny Rafkin, own Jóia Food & Fiber Farm, in Charles City, Iowa. They farm on 130 acres of the land on which her father and grandfather had raised hogs. Johnson felt called back to the land in 2010 after living in California for 18 years. She and Rafkin had a goal of adding diversity and value to her family’s farm through organic agriculture, but they found few organic farmers in the area at the time and none that were implementing agroforestry.

Johnson found support through Practical Farmers of Iowa, a group dedicated to building resilient farms and communities. In 2014, she and Rafkin started transitioning to organic. A small sheep herd that was on the property from when her parents farmed the land was integrated into organic crop rotation. “They were a rough crew of sheep!” Johnson laughs. “They ate grains that couldn’t be sold.”

The Joia Food & Fiber Farm farmstead pictured with sheep, sheepdogs, and cattle grazing. (Photos courtesy of Wendy Johnson)

The sheep were getting sick from eating too much grain, so Johnson worked to reestablish a natural savanna, a mixed woodland and grassland ecosystem that had once been prevalent on Iowa’s landscape but was destroyed by grazing and row crops. Her sheep are now grass-fed, healthier and need little medical intervention, she says. Johnson added trees to grazing land to create silvopastures, enhanced existing windbreaks and planted a micro-orchard with fruit and nut trees.

Extreme rain events in 2016 and 2018 stressed field tile drainage systems on her neighboring farms, causing a creek on her property to flood. This motivated Johnson to take further action to mitigate climate change-related weather events. Through assistance from a Savanna Institute agroforestry planner, Johnson added cool-season perennial grasses to the organic crops and riparian buffers along the banks of the creek. She planted native species of hardwoods and softwoods, including willow and poplar. The deep root systems help prevent soil erosion and stormwater runoff.

Wendy Johnson (left) in the newly planted silvopasture with nine different varieties of native hardwood trees, many nut-bearing. John Rafkin (right) planting cedars on the farm’s enhanced windbreak project. (Photos courtesy of Wendy Johnson)

To date, Johnson has planted 6,000 trees on 20 acres of their fields, with plans to double the number of trees. She’s optimistic about the future of agroforestry and hopes to see more Farm Bill funding directed toward conservation efforts rather than commodities programs.

She believes agroforestry will attract the next generation of farmers and produce offshoot opportunities such as nurseries to grow tree stock. “Agroforestry has a sense of meaning, a sense of community, and it helps the environment by working with nature. It allows us to be creative again, which I think we’ve lost in agriculture,” she says.

Tucker Gretebeck and Eric Weninger’s flooding fix

Farmers Tucker Gretebeck of All Seasons Farms and Eric Weninger of Embark Maple Energy are neighboring farmers in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, a unique topographical area covering parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. It was never covered by glaciers during the last ice age and thus lacks “drift” of silt, sand and rock. With carved river valleys, forests and cold-water trout streams, the region has attracted nature enthusiasts, foodies and agrotourism.

Gretebeck owns All Seasons Farms with his wife, Becky. They have a dairy herd and grow pumpkins. They offer agrotourism events such as fall wagon tours and pizza on the farm. They’re a member of the Organic Valley cooperative of organic farmers founded in La Farge, Wis. in 1988.

Weninger owns Embark Maple Energy along with his wife, Bree Breckel. They produce maple syrup, along with a line of culinary nutritional energy products called Maple Energy, on 160 acres of predominantly sugar maple trees. Like Gretebeck, Weninger offers farm events, with adventurous and educational themes.

Eric Weninger and Bree Breckel of Embark Maple. (Photo courtesy Eric Weninger)

Both Gretebeck and Weninger view agroforestry as an answer to the dramatic increase in the intensity, duration and frequency of climate change-driven extreme rain events that have caused recurring flooding and, in 2018, the failure of flood protection dams in nearby Coon Creek. Both farmers are board members of the Coon Creek Community Watershed Council (CCCWC), a group that formed in response to the flooding. The waterway is a tributary of the Mississippi River.

The CCCWC plans are still in the works, but Weninger says recommended agricultural practice changes include more tree plantings that can retain water onto the hillsides. The Savanna Institute has been identified as a potential partner due to its past work and research.

Tucker Gretebeck planting trees on All Season Farm.

“The intense flooding was a driver that influenced me to implement agroforestry,” says Gretebeck. In addition to organic practices including composting and perennial cover crops, he added a silvopasture for his grass-fed cattle. This helps sequester carbon, improves soil and water infiltration, adds comfort for the animals and improves their milk quality.

Gretebeck worked with the Savanna Institute and Bob Micheel of the Natural Resources Conservation Service to help finance the planting of 1,200 trees that included honey locust, black walnut and a poplar hybrid on his property.

[RELATED: Agroforestry Deepens Roots with New Demonstration Farm Network]

Over at Embark, Weninger says he will plant trees such as native oak species and shrubs this spring to filter more water into the ground. “The deep root systems of large trees and shrubs help hold soil in place,” he explains.

Maple syrup could be considered one of the original crops of forest farming. Weninger enjoys working with generations of sugar maple trees, some more than 250 years old. “That reinforces how the activities that you’re doing in a forest can have both generational and real-time impacts.”

He adds that the indigenous Ho-Chunk Nation was among the first to go into these forests to harvest maple sap. “We really learned from their traditions and are continuing something that’s been done for millennia. That time component adds a lot of depth working in and with the forest.”

Wil Crombie’s forested fowl

Filmmaker, photographer and farmer Wil Crombie, along with his wife, Carly, and sister-in-law, Corrissa Peterson, own and operate Organic Compound, near Northfield, Minn, where they raise Freedom Ranger broiler chickens. Their farm is located on the homestead where Crombie was raised. His mother’s family were dairy farmers, and the land had consisted of pasture and row crop fields.

“We’re lucky to have experienced generational changes. The approaches that my grandfather took to manage the land, and the way my parents turned a portion of it into a homestead, allowed me to watch it go from pasture to forest,” says Crombie. “My generation is removing invasive plants and using agroforestry to bring the pasture back as silvopasture.”

It’s a family affair: Wil and Carly Crombie (middle, right) with sister-in-law Corrissa Peterson (left). (Photo courtesy of Wil Crombie)

Starting in 2014, Crombie transitioned 40 acres of row crop land on his 60-acre parcel. His mentor, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, owns Salvatierra Farms. Together, they formed Tree-Range Farms, a brand of meat chickens raised on silvopasture.

In 2016, Crombie, his wife and Peterson planted 20,000 hazelnut trees for their silvopastures and additional acreage. They added oak, sugar maple, basswood, lilac and elderberry and established alley crops of asparagus, along with a windbreak and a riparian buffer along a waterway.

The farming trio chose hazelnuts and elderberries upon recommendation from elders in their area, and by Crombie’s mentors, Mark Shepard and Terry Durham. “We’re fortunate to have these people helping to facilitate this large-scale regenerative agriculture transition towards agroforestry,” says Crombie.

Chicken, originally jungle fowl, thrive in forested environments. Elderberry, becoming popular as a hedgerow crop, provides both farm income and ecological benefits. (Photos courtesy of Wil Crombie)

Manure from the fowl helps fertilize the silvopastures and fields, and the chickens help with pest control by eating insects and grubs. “It’s a symbiotic relationship, and they benefit from shade and protection from the trees—they’re originally jungle fowl, so they deserve to be in a forested environment,” says Crombie.

Crombie is optimistic that agroforestry will go a long way in restoring land but also rural communities. “Agroforestry has the potential to get more people active and into nature,” he says. “Agroforestry is family farming, and agriculture is a family and community-based, hands-on activity. It’s an exciting opportunity to revive our rural communities.”

The post On the Ground with the Midwest Farmers Going All-In On Agroforestry appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Climate Change Resource Center recognizes agroforestry, the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into agricultural practices, as a promising option to weave productivity and profitability into sustainable and resilient farming systems. Over the past decade, USDA initiatives have created multiple partnerships among nonprofits and universities throughout the country, including SI in the Upper Midwest, University of Missouri in the Lower Midwest, Propagate in the Northeast and Tuskegee University in the Southeast, to meet a growing interest in agroforestry.

Transitioning from traditional agricultural methods to agroforestry often requires a shift in mindset and education. Building out an agroforestry demonstration farm network offers more hands-on educational opportunities and tours for farmers and growers to see what agroforestry looks like, how trees fit into farming landscapes, why they enhance conservation and how they can be economically viable.

An aerial view of the silvopastures at Fiddle Creek Dairy in Lancaster County, PA. (Photo courtesy Savanna Institute)

The SI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in Spring Green, Wis. and Champaign, Ill. It was founded in 2013 in the Champaign-Urbana area by a group of researchers, students and farmers that were interested in exploring how perennial agriculture and agroforestry could benefit Midwestern farmlands.

The organization focuses on Illinois and Wisconsin but also does support work in Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana. Its technical service program pairs farmers one-on-one with an agroforestry expert to help plan and design plantings.

[RELATED: On the Ground with the Midwest Farmers Going All-In On Agroforestry]

The SI focuses on agroforestry practices supported by the USDA. Those include alley cropping, which involves integrating trees or shrubs within annual agricultural or horticultural crops; silvopasture, in which trees are integrated into livestock production for pasture and animal health; and forest farming, which is the cultivation of crops such as mushrooms, medicinal plants or maple syrup under a forest canopy.

In addition, USDA-supported agroforestry practices include efforts to mitigate soil erosion and protect waterways. Riparian forest techniques place trees on the edges of waterways and cropland to protect waterways and prevent erosion. Windbreaks involve planting trees along edges of fields to keep soil in place, enhance crop production and protect motorists on adjacent roadways from snowdrifts and fierce winds.

Demonstrating what works

For many farmers, seeing is believing. That’s one of the reasons why Adams is enthusiastic about SI’s new statewide agroforestry demonstration farm network that will launch in Wisconsin this spring. On the demonstration sites, farmers can see examples of successful integration of trees on farms. 

The effort is through an ongoing partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a branch of the USDA. The NRCS will invest $1.4 million toward agroforestry demonstration and educational opportunities across Wisconsin, with a goal of increasing the number of landowners planting trees and other perennials on their farmland. The new agroforestry demonstration sites in Wisconsin are the third project in which SI has partnered with the NRCS. Previous projects include technical assistance programs for farmers and training NRCS staff to offer in-house agroforestry service providers.

Wisconsin’s demonstration sites program will serve three main objectives: highlighting farmers that are adopting agroforestry, allowing individuals and other farmers to engage in educational opportunities; providing peer-to-peer thesis for education and support of farmers doing agroforestry; and offering opportunity for these farms to be part of a research network.

Kaitie Adams is director of demonstration and on-farm education for the Savanna Institute. (Photo courtesy Savanna Institute)

Adams says SI has already received several inquiries from farmers interested in participating in the program. Those include multi-generation family farms or beginning farmers that are adopting agroforestry or farmers transitioning from annual production to perennial production.

“Wisconsin producers have always been innovative and open to exploring ways to diversify their agriculture systems, provide their products to new markets and be good stewards of the land,” says Josh Odekirk, acting state conservationist for the Wisconsin NRCS. “Agroforestry is a sustainable land management approach that can be integrated into existing traditional crop and livestock systems. Savanna Institute is an ideal partner to help implement this work.”

Odekirk adds that Wisconsin NRCS has new funding through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to implement climate-smart conservation practices that benefit conservation and a producer’s bottom line. “Agroforestry conservation practices are eligible for standard Farm Bill funding as well as IRA funding in both the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program.”

For the fiscal year 2024, Odekirk says Wisconsin received more than $41 million in IRA funding over and above their standard Farm Bill funding.

Removing barriers to an original form of agriculture

Adams calls agroforestry one of the original forms of agriculture that’s been utilized around the world. The types of trees and shrubs integrated into agroforestry depend on the type of farm, its crops and its needs.

Savanna Institute and the NRCS focuses on trees and perennial crops that are native or native-adjacent to the area. Windbreaks might integrate native conifers and evergreens, along with hardwoods such as hazelnut, chestnuts, berry fruits and shrub fruit.

Due to Wisconsin’s proud history of dairy production, silvopasture is becoming a common agroforestry practice used in the state, says Adams, and Wisconsin’s rich abundance of woodlands also lends to forest farming.

Silvopasture integrates trees into livestock production for pasture and animal health. (Photo courtesy Savanna Institute)

The new agroforestry demonstration farm network in Wisconsin will help to remove barriers to implementing agroforestry practices, says Adams. Shifting from annual crops to perennial crop production—particularly with trees, which often outlive the person that plants them—requires a shift in mindset and skillset.

“The cost of planting 500 trees is very different [from] the cost of 500 annual plants. But the great thing about perennials is that you make that big investment once, and then it pays off over time, rather than having to do the same costs year after year,” says Adams.

Partnering with NRCS gives farmers access to programs that can help cost-share and provide technical assistance to get trees in the ground. Adams notes they also pay farmers for offering education, research and outreach.

Blooming ecological success

Maggie Taylor of Delight Flower Farm, a commercial cut-flower farm in Champaign, Ill., has always been ecologically minded. As her business grew from a small plot in a backyard garden to the five-acre farm she purchased in 2019, Taylor tapped into USDA cost-share contracts that reward conservation practices. 

Owning her own property opened possibilities of investing in more perennial plants and permanent infrastructure to grow the business. Through Adams, Taylor had worked with SI to create a plan for integrating trees and shrubs on her property. “I had primarily done cut flowers as annual crops or grew in a greenhouse, so I didn’t have a lot of experience or knowledge of perennials. Savanna Institute was a great resource for me.”

Maggie Taylor shows perennial agriculture methods to curious gatherers. (Photos courtesy of Maggie Taylor)

Taylor uses alley cropping, through which she mixes perennial crops such as holly with her annuals. She harvests the holly during winter to sell as holiday greenery. She also plants coralberry, red osier dogwood and elderberry. These plantings help sequester carbon, protect the soil’s ecosystem and create habitat for birds, insects and small wildlife.

Taylor also installed windbreaks, planting two rows of white pine, interplanted with red cedar, blue spruce and Colorado spruce. An interior row of the property consists of witch hazel and coralberry. These lower shrubs provide wildlife habitat, along with sellable products such as holly and berries.

“Twenty years ago, there was a buzz about people replacing standard American lawns with raised beds to reduce environmental impacts of lawn chemicals,” says Taylor. “Agroforestry is a level above that conversation with the same intentionality, planting trees for the benefit of the property owner, the environment and the ecosystem as a whole.”

Learn more about agroforestry

Want to expand your knowledge of agroforestry? Savanna Institute’s online course series includes topics such as Agroforestry Foundations, Social Justice and Agroforestry, Perennial Crops and Practices in Agroforestry, Managing Agroforestry Systems in a Changing Climate,and Land Access and Finances in Agroforestry. Some classes are free, while others are $40.

Savanna Institute’s website also includes downloadable publications, including its book Perennial Pathways: Planting Tree Crops. Its apprenticeship program pairs people in the Midwest interested in agroforestry to work with mentors to gain hands-on experience. The organization also hosts a yearly perennial farm gathering, workshops, events and the podcast Perennial AF.

Have a question about planting trees? Ask your question in the comments—we’ll have an expert agroforester from the Savanna Institute answer reader questions in a future story.

The post Agroforestry Deepens Roots with New Demonstration Farm Network appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The heat dome was not typical for the region, to be sure, but high temperatures are becoming ever more normalized due to climate change. Other parts of the country see birds dealing with heat stress more often. Earlier this year, the Arizona Republic reported notable incidences of bird stress in Tucson. In California’s Central Valley, drought can endanger migratory birds who look for water sources and find scarcity instead. These heat-related catastrophes are especially frightening in context: Over the last 50 years, the number of birds in the US and Canada has dropped by a startling 29 percent.

These occurrences in urban areas are scary, but heat stress can affect birds in more rural spaces, too, and farmland is no exception. Two recent studies looked at how birds interact with agricultural lands and how changes in water, heat or aridity can throw off the balance in this delicate equation. 

Raptors and water tanks

Many ranchers are familiar with making sure their livestock have access to water sources—whether that be stock tanks, overflow areas or earthen tanks. But it turns out that birds, specifically raptors, depend on these water sources, too.

“Certainly the livestock use them, but the overflow areas, you have all kinds of small mammals come in and use them,” says Clint Boal, PhD, professor of wildlife biology at Texas Tech University. “And so they kind of function as de facto oases in this very arid landscape.”

Boal was interested in how raptors interacted with water sources, because it is a common assumption that raptors—birds of prey including hawks, falcons and barn owls—don’t need to drink water to survive because they can get their water from their prey. They may use these water sources to cool off, but they aren’t necessarily there to drink it. Using cameras that had been set up at these ranch water sources across west Texas for another study, Boal and his team began their work, which was later published in BioOne.

Livestock stand near a water tank. (Photo: Shutterstock)

They found that the raptors increased their visits to water sources when it was either exceptionally hot or exceptionally dry. (Sometimes, in the winter, the temperatures are lower but it’s still arid.)

Eggs and juveniles are particularly vulnerable, due to their dependency on their parents for temperature regulation.

“Even if we have water resources that adults can access, if heat continues [in] the direction it’s going, and aridity—probably even more importantly—continues [in] the direction it’s going, those nestlings cannot survive,” says Boal.

For every raptor you see, there are countless other species also benefitting from these water sources. A lot of migrating birds, such as songbirds, use them as well. 

Aboveground tanks have a drowning risk—animals and birds sometimes have trouble getting out. But this risk can be mitigated by installing simple escape ramps. Shallow water sources low to the ground can be particularly beneficial for birds.

“From a wildlife perspective, having these earthen tanks, or seeps that they set up, or just overflow areas where enough water is overflowing out of the tank, to be accessible to wildlife … can be really beneficial to virtually every species out there,” says Boal.

Stress in the nest

Birds nesting near agricultural lands may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of heat, says Katherine Lauck, a doctoral candidate in ecology at UC Davis and the lead author of a paper published in Science that examined the effects of heat stress on birds. Lauck used 23 years of data from NestWatch, a bird camera program from Cornell University, to retrieve information about bird fledgling success from 58 species across the country. This abundance of data allowed them to trace trends across time and space.

One of Lauck’s biggest findings was that fledgling success was lower near agricultural lands. Fledgling success is how many birds make it to adulthood. While this study didn’t investigate why this is, Lauck hypothesizes that it has something to do with lesser canopy cover—the amount of shade the birds could access—in agricultural areas.

“We were really excited to be able to key in on reproductive success as a proxy for fitness,” says Lauck. “And the lower the fitness of a population of birds is, the more likely that population is going to decline and eventually go extinct.”

Reproductive success is closely tied to whether a population of birds is going to be able to persist in agriculture, more so than simply looking at the abundance of birds in agriculture, says Lauck.

Temperature stress can affect fledgling success in the egg and chick stages. Adult birds thermoregulate their eggs by keeping them warm, but it’s harder to keep them cool. Once a chick hatches, all of their water is obtained through food, because they cannot yet fly to a water source. If it’s too hot to survive without supplementary water, the chicks may not make it to adulthood.

Baby birds depend on their parents for sustenance and thermoregulation. (Photography: Shutterstock)

“A huge important factor for thermoregulation in birds is water availability,” says Lauck. This is significant for birds in agricultural areas that are also water-stressed, such as California and along the Colorado River.

Heat can decrease the fledgling success of birds, and Lauck’s next research project will look into how this happens. 

“If we figure out what the mechanisms are, that leads us directly to concrete conservation interventions,” says Lauck.

At the farm level, Lauck recommends certain actions that can help birds deal with this heat stress. Maintain existing trees, even if they’re isolated. Allow for riparian buffers between fields—anything to foster shade. “We think that even small patches of forest are useful for providing these microclimate refuges for birds living in agricultural landscapes. It can allow birds to access a little bit of that extra water that seeps from your land,” says Lauck.

It should also be noted that climate change is the reason these warm conditions get warmer, and mitigation must be viewed from that perspective, too.

Trees adjacent to farmland can provide critical canopy to wild birds. (Photo: Shutterstock)

There are almost three billion fewer birds in the wild in the US and Canada now than there were in the 1970s. Besides this being tragic just for the sake of the birds, Lauck says this also impacts humans.

“We’re losing the value that those birds bring to our working landscapes,” says Lauck. “They inspire us, they drive this massive bird-watching industry, but they can also benefit farmers by eating pests and pollinating crops. And so I think people can see that there is value in birds. And they just need to know ‘what do I do?’”

Farmers have an important role to play, says Lauck. Across the globe, nearly half of all habitable land is used for farming. But this paper can provide some insight into how to co-manage agricultural land for bird species that are trying to live on despite climate change and habitat destruction.

“If we want to maintain a resilient, biodiverse biological community that will continue to provide us with ecosystem services … but also the sense of a connection to the natural world and the sense of belonging you feel when you see a familiar organism living around you,” says Lauck, “we need to manage agriculture for more than just production.” 

***

Learn more about the benefits of birds on farms: We’ve written about this before. Check out this story about how birds help out agricultural lands.

Want to make your farm more bird-friendly? The National Audubon Society has some ideas. Check out its Conservation Ranching program for more information.

If you live in an urban area, then we’d recommend reading this piece in the Arizona Republic, which offers some guidance on what to do if you see a young bird that’s fled the nest due to heat.

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“What we’re going to be doing today is pruning,” Sanchez tells the group. “We’ll start with the banana trees, and once we’ve thinned out that line, we’ll move on to the taller eucalyptus.” She explains that this is one of the most important tasks in agroforestry, because the hormones that the pruned branches release into the soil below will nourish plant beds and help the plants grow stronger and faster.

This location in Tlacochahuaya is called Tierra del Sol, a regenerative farming initiative and eco village founded in 1998 by Pablo Ruiz Lavalle, the site’s director. Formerly a commercial airline pilot, in that year Lavalle purchased one hectare—about two and a half acres—of land. Surrounded by plots characterized by intensive monocropping of crops such as corn, beans and alfalfa, the small area he purchased had been left unworked for some time and was in a sorry state. “The soil here was extremely compacted, there was very little organic material in it and it was stripped of any cover crops,” Lavalle says as we sit in an open-air gazebo on the property, accompanied by late-morning birdsong and the steady drone of forager honeybees flocking to Tierra del Sol’s scores of lavender plants. 

Pablo Ruiz Lavalle. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

Glancing at the site’s neighboring parcels, where small-scale farmers work plots of the aforementioned crops using heavy applications of industrial pesticides and herbicides provided for free by the Mexican government, Lavalle’s description of the area’s not-too-distant past wasn’t hard to imagine. But looking over at Tierra del Sol’s garden plot, tall trees in various intensities of green swaying slowly above crops such as lettuce, broccoli, and a wide variety of herbs, it was more difficult to picture this land’s less-than-productive beginnings.

A key difference between Tierra del Sol and the dry, cracked farmland surrounding it? The practice of syntropic agriculture.

A view of Tierra del Sol’s plot of land. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

The 4,500-square-meter plot where Sanchez would welcome volunteers to the tequio has been cultivated using principles of syntropic agriculture since 2019. This method of agroforestry, developed by the Swiss farmer and plant geneticist Ernst Götsch starting in the late 1970s, aims to work with nature, not against it, by reproducing certain principles of a naturally occurring forest in order to both cultivate food and rehabilitate the soil. 

In syntropic agriculture spaces, plants are grown in different strata, beginning with low-to-the-ground vegetables, legumes, fruits, and herbs and culminating in a tree canopy that is populated by different species depending on the growing climate. Throughout the year, those trees are periodically pruned, with the consistent bring-down of organic material to the gardens below working to restore soil fertility, increase the diversity of microbes and fungi and ensure the health of the crops growing on the garden floor. Regular pruning of trees also manages the sun and shade conditions, further contributing to a balanced ecosystem. In the presence of a well-managed syntropic agriculture system, soil grows healthier, regenerating in one-third the time it would if left unassisted. 

Born in 1948, Götsch relocated to Brazil in the early 1980s, eventually establishing himself and his family on 480 hectares of clear-cut Bahian forest that had been completely razed by the previous owner to produce lumber. There, with the initial intention of seeding a cacao plantation, Götsch set to work rehabilitating the land with his nascent principles of syntropic agriculture. In 1995, he published an early report on his farming methods, “Break-Through in Agriculture,” earning him local attention and acclaim. Today, Götsch’s verdant, ecologically diverse oasis in Brazil—a country known for its rampant deforestation practices—continues to attract the interest of advocates of regenerative agriculture. 

Volunteers pitch in during a work day at Tierra del Sol. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

As the name “syntropic” implies, Götsch’s farming principles aim to produce more life, not less. As opposed to the entropic, chemical-heavy methods of monocropping that today dominate the global industrial farming landscape, syntropic systems increase matter and energy over time, building biodiversity and enriching soil fertility. And while the term syntropic agriculture is a fairly recent one, the practices it utilizes are anything but modern.

“It’s very important to recognize that when we talk about agroforestry, when we talk about syntropic agriculture, we’re talking about Indigenous agriculture,” says Namastê Messerschmidt, a longtime student and collaborator of Ernst Götsch who currently resides in Curitiba, in southern Brazil. In 2019, Sanchez, the consultant at Tierra del Sol, took a weeklong agroforestry course with Messerschmidt, and she came away so impressed with the techniques he imparted that she immediately convinced Lavalle, the center’s director, to pivot from the permaculture approach of hugelkultur—raised beds made of rotting logs and other plant debris—to syntropic agriculture. Tierra del Sol’s syntropic garden plot was seeded that same year.

According to Messerschmidt, cultures all over the world have always worked with the forest, planting their crops below the tree canopy and utilizing its abundant natural resources to boost their food production. As an example, he cites a phenomenon known in Brazil as “Indian black earth” or “Indigenous black earth”: a dark, humid soil found throughout the Amazon that’s highly fertile and rich in minerals such as calcium, magnesium and zinc. Once thought to be a natural phenomenon, this black earth is today recognized as the product of some eight thousand years of sustainable, Indigenous Brazilian agriculture, in which native Amazonian tribes domesticated crops such as yucca under a forest canopy of native trees such as cacao and mahogany. 

“For me, agroforestry is doing things as nature does them,” says Messerschmidt. “There’s an intelligence in the forest that we’re simply allowing to unfold.”

Lining paths with pruned material during a work day at Tierra del Sol. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

At workshops, courses, and training all over the world as well as online, instructors including Messerschmidt, Götsch and others are spreading the gospel of syntropy—and people are listening. 

“The demand is growing, and the need for it is even higher,” says Thiago Barbosa, the Australia-based founder of Syntropic Solutions, a designer and developer of agroforestry projects that helps individuals, companies and corporations transition from conventional to syntropic agriculture. Barbosa travels all over the world to teach workshops on agroforestry. He notes that the global interest in the practices is at an all-time high.

“At these workshops, I see more and more people from all walks of life,” he says. “Single moms that just want to have self-sufficiency, farmers who don’t want to spray with chemicals anymore, big corporations that are looking to meet their carbon targets.” In that last category is the cosmetics giant L’Oréal, at whose offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Syntropic Solutions planted an edible orchard of native fruit trees.

Using machetes during a work day at Tierra del Sol. (Photo: Lauren Rothman/Modern Farmer)

At Tierra del Sol, there’s evidence—observed both scientifically and anecdotally—that the center’s transition to syntropic agriculture has been a success. Sanchez tells me that, in 2021 and 2022, the garden’s team performed analyses of the soil using chromatography, which demonstrates soil health through markers such as mineral content and the presence of microorganisms. The second samples taken at Tierra del Sol showed increased oxygenation and a higher content of organic material than the year prior, says Sanchez. But the changes at Tierra del Sol can simply be observed with the naked eye—and ear.

“It’s very clear,” says Lavalle. “One of the things you notice, when you’re walking from the neighboring parcels to ours, is that the closer you get, the more birdsong you hear in the morning and the afternoon. There’s a lot more insect activity, too.”

“The fields that surround us—well, you can see how those look,” says Lavalle. “Whereas here, there are bees, there are wasps, there are all kinds of signs to show us that this area is home to more life than it was before.”

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