Anyone have experience of agroforestry?

[gary112]

2 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

Excuse my ignorance but whats the product? 

Hedge laying materials(stakes and binders),hurdle making,firewood

[Woodworks]

13 minutes ago, Paul in the woods said:

Do you have any other aims other than dividing fields? I've done something on a smaller scale but more the forest garden side of agroforestry rather than agriculture.

 

If you want food rather than fuel from the hedge you'll be planting different trees and shrubs. I'd also avoid ash and chestnut due to the various diseases.

 

You'll shade out part of your fields, I know the farmers round here like to shave there hedges within a few inches of the ground to gain as much ground as possible.

 

My wide hedge is really to provide a wind break but I've managed to mix in damsons, myrobalans, crab apples, hazel along with hawthorn, field maple etc. Hopefully we'll get something out of it if the wild life doesn't beat us to it.

 

My main problems has been slow growth as the soil if fairly poor, along with wind and deer.

No major aims other to enable more wildlife and happy for a bit of shade for the sheep. If we grow a bit less grass under them I can live with that. Could look at fruit but the first site is very exposed and the apple in our garden often loses its blossom prematurely. 

[Woodworks]

Just now, gary112 said:

Hedge laying materials(stakes and binders),hurdle making,firewood

Hard pushed to get it big enough for firewood here. Not thought of stakes binders and hurdle making. Devon style laying is different as its normally on high banks. Will look into it though

[dumper]

Thatcher also use hazel 

[Stere]

Silvopasture trees can be used for animal fodder also

 

"Tree Hay"

 

Tree Hay: A forgotten fodder

WWW.AGRICOLOGY.CO.UK

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A short histor

 

Could give it a go?

 

Shame ash & elm are fucked now though.

 

Also labour intensive

 

 

 

 

 

[markieg31]

Yep many many benefits of trees for animals and the land.

Nourishment

BOOKS.GOOGLE.CO.UK

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Reflections on feeding body and spirit in a world of change Animal scientists have long considered domestic livestock to be too dumb to know how to eat right, but the lifetime research of animal behaviorist Fred Provenza and his colleagues has debunked this myth. Their work shows that when given a choice of natural foods, livestock have an astoundingly refined palate, nibbling through the day on as many as fifty kinds of grasses, forbs, and shrubs to meet their nutritional needs with remarkable precision. In Nourishment Provenza presents his thesis of the wisdom body, a wisdom that links flavor-feedback relationships at a cellular level with biochemically rich foods to meet the body's nutritional and medicinal needs. Provenza explores the fascinating complexity of these relationships as he raises and answers thought-provoking questions about what we can learn from animals about nutritional wisdom. What kinds of memories form the basis for how herbivores, and humans, recognize foods? Can a body develop nutritional and medicinal memories in utero and early in life? Do humans still possess the wisdom to select nourishing diets? Or, has that ability been hijacked by nutritional "authorities"? Consumers eager for a "quick fix" have empowered the multibillion-dollar-a-year supplement industry, but is taking supplements and enriching and fortifying foods helping us, or is it hurting us? On a broader scale Provenza explores the relationships among facets of complex, poorly understood, ever-changing ecological, social, and economic systems in light of an unpredictable future. To what degree do we lose contact with life-sustaining energies when the foods we eat come from anywhere but where we live? To what degree do we lose the mythological relationship that links us physically and spiritually with Mother Earth who nurtures our lives? Provenza's paradigm-changing exploration of these questions has implications that could vastly improve our health through a simple change in the way we view our relationships with the plants and animals we eat. Our health could be improved by eating biochemically rich foods and by creating cultures that know how to combine foods into meals that nourish and satiate. Provenza contends the voices of "authority" disconnect most people from a personal search to discover the inner wisdom that can nourish body and spirit. That journey means embracing wonder and uncertainty and avoiding illusions of stability and control as we dine on a planet in a universe bent on consuming itself.