Agroforestry/ forest gardening.

[wrsni]

As part of my continuing aim to create a productive woodland in as many ways as possible as opposed to just planting an area of trees*, I would like to look increasingly in to smaller scale agroforestry or possibly in my case it would be more accurately described as "forest gardening".

 

Could anyone recommend any decent books on the subject other than Martin Crawfords?

 

Thanks.

 

*not being derisory of anyone "just" planting trees, still a very worthy and worthwhile thing to do.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Some info and further links here:

 

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/flora-and-fauna/wild-boar-and-woodland-regeneration/#

 

I'm not well read in but the overarching concept holds appeal for me.

[Daniël Bos]

Depends a lot on scale, the French do a good bit of agroforestry, but it's intercropping rows of trees in large scale arable mainly.

 

There's a chap near Peterborough (who's name is in my head, just hiding in a dark corner) whos doing large scale apple trees in organic arable at 24m spacing with good preliminary results

 

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[Vespasian]

As part of my continuing aim to create a productive woodland in as many ways as possible as opposed to just planting an area of trees*, I would like to look increasingly in to smaller scale agroforestry or possibly in my case it would be more accurately described as "forest gardening".

 

Could anyone recommend any decent books on the subject other than Martin Crawfords?

 

Thanks.

 

*not being derisory of anyone "just" planting trees, still a very worthy and worthwhile thing to do.

 

Can't say I know much on the subject but have seen a couple of Utube vids over the years...

 

I like the idea though.. I hope you carry out your plan and its a great success..

 

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[wrsni]

I like the idea though.. I hope you carry out your plan and its a great success..

 

Thank you, it's a particular struggle to do anything at all constructive with trees over here as everything in the countryside is agriculture based, and apart from maybe shelter belts on the uplands, trees have no part in agriculture (apparently!).

 

But I was pig-headed enough to plant out 8 acres of prime arable land with native woodland, so I'll continue in the same vein trying things out.

 

More interested in seeing what can be grown within it rather than just grazing, thus the "gardening" description, but happy enough to study the principle first and be open-minded about where it takes me.

 

Thanks for the link Kevin, looks like there could be some interesting stuff about there.

[headgroundsman]

I am going to try growing some veg between the tree in a newly planted area

[DanSmallLGL]

This is an extract from this website (The Organic Research Centre)

 

Whitehall Farm

Organic arable farmers and advisors, Stephen and Lynn Briggs, have recently established a silvoarable system on 125 acres of fenland soils, just outside Peterborough.

The system consists of widely spaced rows of apple trees and 24m-wide alleys of combinable crops. The 4500 apple trees were planted in October 2009; the 13 varieties (9 commercial and 4 traditional) were selected to produce apples for juicing and eating. In the 3m-wide strips under the trees, Stephen has sown a nectar-rich seed mixture to encourage the pollinators that are so important for successful fruit harvests. Late maturing tree varieties have been chosen to allow harvesting of the alley crops first and pruning of overhanging branches will develop the trees into a hedge-like structure that will make it easier to cultivate within the alleys without damaging the trees.

[Vespasian]

Thank you, it's a particular struggle to do anything at all constructive with trees over here as everything in the countryside is agriculture based, and apart from maybe shelter belts on the uplands, trees have no part in agriculture (apparently!).

 

But I was pig-headed enough to plant out 8 acres of prime arable land with native woodland, so I'll continue in the same vein trying things out.

 

More interested in seeing what can be grown within it rather than just grazing, thus the "gardening" description, but happy enough to study the principle first and be open-minded about where it takes me.

 

Thanks for the link Kevin, looks like there could be some interesting stuff about there.

 

There should be more people like you, people need to know what can be done when permaculture is applied to a woodland environment...

 

People seem to imagine the future involves involves sci fi mega cities rising into the sky's.. as an amature futurologist its my belief that we're goin to end up back in the bronze age...

 

So, people need to get their skates on and investigate every possible alternative to modern agriculture...

[wrsni]

People seem to imagine the future involves involves sci fi mega cities rising into the sky's.. as an amature futurologist its my belief that we're goin to end up back in the bronze age...

 

It's a sound theory up to a point. The problem would be that such a change would require something cataclysmic to trigger it and then there's no way of knowing how any of us or the environment we live in is going to come out of that.

 

But still, as a former intensive farmer I know in the pit of my stomach that what I'm doing now is actually much more in tune with nature and the environment than what I was doing then.

[LynherTraining]

The Agroforestry Research Trust is in Totnes, Devon and they do courses and have several publications you can buy on their website.

 

https://www.agroforestry.co.uk

 

Hope that helps in your quest!