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What to you is Agroforestry?

Started by just_sawing, October 28, 2016, 06:52:29 AM

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just_sawing

I have a question for everyone. What is Agroforestry and how do you implement it on your operation.
I am going to be a guest Lecturer at a local college and was wondering what is everyone else concept of Agroforestry. This is as I was happy to learn a course at the college.
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Don P

To me, cropping under the canopy. Look at the forest not just the trees. Google "forest farming".
The dryer has been running with black cohosh roots for an order here. We were inspected and certified organic this year which helps with marketing (I'm not entirely sure what a non organic forest is) I delivered a carload of ramps down to the city last spring, ac running full tilt and rolling. I didn't realize anything was amiss till I walked into Lowes on my way home, I was getting looks and everyone was giving a wide berth... my nose was numb  :D. You'll probably get a hit under Dr Goodramps. Chanterelles are another woodland crop here as is 'sang (wild vs forest grown vs cultivated all have different price points), goldenseal, paw paw, wineberries, ornamentals (galax and ferns). Watch sustainability, don't mine the crop out. The cohosh for instance, we inventoried and are taking less than a third and replanting part of the root. Ramp festivals can extinguish the plant from an area. There are many growing layers under the canopy if you look.

WDH



To me, it is fast growing, shorter rotation, single species monoculture like in pine plantations in the South like this one.  Here it is several stages into the process:



 



 



 



 


Here it is at age 7 years of age.



 

Management is intensive.  Weeds and woody competition are controlled with chemicals and prescribed fire. Nutrients are supplied via fertilizer applications.  There may be pruning of limbs and intermediate thinnings are done to select final crop trees. 



 



 



 

Agroforestry is planting trees as a crop, in rows just like a crop, and harvested just like a crop.  The cycle is just longer than most agricultural crops.  Regeneration is artificial from select genetically bred seed in purpose grown seed orchards.  Pollination of the cones in the case of pine is controlled to select for specific traits. Seeds are planted in purpose built nurseries to grow millions of seedlings. 

It also applies to hardwoods like eucalyptus plantations grown in Brazil on rotation cycles of 7 years. 



  
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Ron Wenrich

I'm with WDH on this one, but I wouldn't limit it to pine.  They do a lot of eucalyptus in other parts of the world, and there was a push for hybrid poplar for fuel.   

Products under the canopy would be more on the lines alternate or secondary products from the forest.  Tourism or hunting could also be seen as a secondary or alternate product.  These could be equally important or be worth more than the canopy.  Truffles are worth a lot of money, but few people gather or propagate them.  Ginseng has a long history of worth, and the propagation I have seen has usually been around a homestead.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

TKehl

What's in a word...  The pine and eucalyptus pictures above make me think more "managed forestry" versus unmanged.

I consider agroforestry to be the integration of more traditional Ag with forestry.  The idea is that the combination is more profitable and/or better for the land than either idea alone.

The USDA consider 5 general division:

Silvopasture:  Grazing + forestry
Alley cropping:  Row crop + forestry.
Forest farming:  Mushrooms, herbs, pine needles, decorative stuff etc. from, under, and in a forest.
Windbreaks:  ... well row crops there, but it can help row crops.
Riparian buffer strips:  Trees along streams that reduce runoff and erosion.

Also, nothing says you can't plant an income generating tree any any of the above.  Pine needles can be harvested from windbreaks.  Elderberries and some medicinal shrubs grow well in riparian areas.  Etc.

MU in Missouri even offers a Masters degree in Agroforestry.

Personally, I have a goal to convert some row crop ground to chestnuts by using alley cropping to avoid the cash crunch in the middle while waiting for chestnut production to kick in.
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

Ianab

Locally it's also taken to mean mixing tree crops into a conventional farming operation.

For example, locally the farming is mostly livestock grazing. Dairy cows, beef cattle and sheep. But not all your land will be suitable for livestock, there are usually steep hillsides and gullies that might be prone to erosion, dangerous for your livestock, or need to be fenced off to keep animals out of waterways. So what do you do with that? The usual answer is to put in a small plantation of Radiata pine, which  can be intensively managed (pruned and thinned) to produce good quality saw logs in 25-30 years. Radiata is the species of choice because the larger forestry operators are also growing it, so the mills and markets are there for smaller logging operators to sell your logs easily, and probably see a return for your work in your own lifetime.

Of course that's not the only options. Shelter belts can be managed to produce timber as well, with different pruning techniques to allow a "hedge" to still produce good saw logs. A tree that has been planted a lot recently is Japanese Cedar (known as Sugi is Japan). This grows into a HUGE tree eventually, something resembling a redwood, so those hedges will need to be taken out at some stage in the future. If a local market for the wood can be established there should be some good saw logs to be had.

And of course there are smaller plantations of all sorts of things that people plant, often just because they want trees. Maybe they will produce a return for some future generation.
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Den-Den

To me; anything that you plant with intention of it being harvested is agriculture whether it is corn, trees or whatever.  The timeline is different for trees but they are still a crop.  Agroforestry is just a buzzword to me.
You may think that you can or may think you can't; either way, you are right.

TimFromNB

I actually just attended a conference on "Non-Timber Forest Products" which I believe falls in the same category. Speakers had businesses in eco-tourism, wild edibles and medecinal plants (ramps/leeks, mushrooms, cat tails, fiddle heads etc.), domesticated plants (i.e. fiddle heads), christmas trees and of course maple syrup.

I'll post the link to their website (http://www.fromfieldandforest.com/), although I'm not sure it contains much information. The presentation slides are supposed to be posted eventually on BIO NB's website (http://bionb.org/).



Kbeitz

Quote from: WDH on October 28, 2016, 08:10:04 AM


To me, it is fast growing, shorter rotation, single species monoculture like in pine plantations in the South like this one.  Here it is several stages into the process:



 



 



 



 


Here it is at age 7 years of age.



 

Management is intensive.  Weeds and woody competition are controlled with chemicals and prescribed fire. Nutrients are supplied via fertilizer applications.  There may be pruning of limbs and intermediate thinnings are done to select final crop trees. 



 



 



 

Agroforestry is planting trees as a crop, in rows just like a crop, and harvested just like a crop.  The cycle is just longer than most agricultural crops.  Regeneration is artificial from select genetically bred seed in purpose grown seed orchards.  Pollination of the cones in the case of pine is controlled to select for specific traits. Seeds are planted in purpose built nurseries to grow millions of seedlings. 

It also applies to hardwoods like eucalyptus plantations grown in Brazil on rotation cycles of 7 years. 



 

Itt Rayonier in Jesup Ga. has been doing that for years.
716,620 acres of sustainably- managed working forests.
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

Brucer

The Canadian department of Agriculture has a definition ...

"Agroforestry is the integration of trees into farming. In agroforestry, trees are an essential part of the farm. They help improve farm productivity and increase crop yields. Agroforestry can also make farms more profitable while helping to protect the environment."

http://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/science-and-innovation/agricultural-practices/agroforestry/

It's not about growing and harvesting trees as a crop. It's about using trees to enhance the output of farm crops and livestock. It seems to me what they are advocating is the same thing that farmers used to do years ago.

One thing that is often overlooked is the benefits of bio-diversity, where the trees provide habitat for beneficial species of animals, birds, and insects.

People may have their own ideas/definitions of what Agroforestry means, but if you're going to lecture on it at a college, it's a good idea to find out what the formal definition is in your area. Otherwise you may find the students expecting something completely different.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

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