What does it involve?Neighbour taking out his ash plantation due to die back and putting in agroforestry. Asked if we’d be interested. Looks a good job for cattle. Much of it around?
Are the premiums less than for full blown forestry?Trees planted in rows up to 20m apart. You can graze young cattle, cut silage, make hay sow crops in between the trees
That's interesting, especially the last part. Is there a specific type of tree? I'm mean, around here, willow would be very popular, easy to grow and grows well in the shallow soils. Could it be done with native Willow or are you tied to a specific type of tree?We're supposed to be doing the same, but someone involved has been less than helpful so its still not planted. The autumn!
I think it is a great idea for certain types of land. Land that is good but hard to drain, land that's not suited to modern silage production equipment.
You're signing it over to grazing mostly, maybe a cut of silage or hay with farmer sized gear.
Tree roots are good for ground, leaf mulch is good for ground and if the trees are managed right it should have a relatively low impact on the output of that type of ground.
Only suitable for sheep and calf grazing for the first few years until the trees establish.
Under the dept scheme trees are in either a 5x5 grid or 7x3.5. It takes a long time to open out to 20m rows.
Mostly to me it's a way of getting land back from forestry without repaying the forestry premium
Shading on Ireland means less grass, shading in Spain might mean better moisture retention. Just guessing.Some agroforestry in Spain. Owner claims that the shelter from the trees as well as the root benefits are producing 5x the amount of grass than before planting and that agroforestry has actually allowed him to increase cattle numbers. View attachment 91928View attachment 91929View attachment 91930
Grass is always sour under trees here from leaves decomposing, cattle lying there and dunging when they get up and the lack of sunshine, only advantage might be that they would stop ivy growing up the trees if they were able to wander between them but that would be a few years down the road from establishment.Shading on Ireland means less grass, shading in Spain might mean better moisture retention. Just guessing.
Shading on Ireland means less grass, shading in Spain might mean better moisture retention. Just guessing.
we have sitka shading a field and it's a balls alright. in a dry year and you plough near a ditch where there's ash trees growing the soil is literally like dust,the trees have sucked all the moisture out of the soil.
Not very neighbourly, but Sitka do not like lime, do not like slurry and do not like sub soilers.We had sika shading a lot of ground up to this time last year when it was removed. It left fields wetter, and the shaded ground grew less grass and was always a different colour to the grass in the middle of the field. Last summer, with the trees gone, we saw a huge improvement and this time around, they planted deciduous trees along the outside which should help.