GHENT — Hawthorne Valley Farm (HVF) announces that it has planted more than 300 trees as part of a silvopasture project. Silvopasture is the incorporation of trees into farm field management in such a way that benefits grazing animals and improves carbon capacity.
The 300 trees were planted by 20 volunteers in a meadow on the Farm’s Schnackenberg Road campus in Ghent. The varieties include a mixture of Honey and Black Locust, Mulberry, Hybrid Poplar, and Chestnut which all have high quality feed value for cows in the pasture.
“The impulse for the project came out of the growing awareness of the agricultural value of trees,” says Spencer Fenniman, director of Hawthorne Valley Farm. “This awareness has lived at Hawthorne Valley for a number of years in the long standing effort of the farm in collaboration with Farmscape Ecology to create a mosaic agricultural landscape.”
An opportunity to make the idea of silvopasture a reality came after Sophia Hampton, a member of the first cohort of Hawthorne Valley’s gap year program Place Corps did an independent study that focused on this form of agriculture. In collaboration with Connor Steadman of Apple Seed Permaculture, Hampton and HVF staff developed a plan to establish strips of tree crops in a young stock meadow that suffered from excessive Southern exposure.
“The goal of these trees, planted along contours on the hill, is to improve the carbon capacity of our agricultural fields, to provide shade, create habitat corridors, and tree fodder for our cows who do seek out leaves to eat,” says Fenniman.
For information about Hawthorne Valley Farm, visit https://farm.hawthornevalley.org.
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