Wood-Pasture

[dlskidmore]

I’ve been reading about chestnut-finished pork, forest gardening, and the shade considerations brought up in some of the older posts in the Grow grass and graze thread. I think I would really like to have wood-pasture as part of my farm plan.

Now fruit orchards can’t be grazed by sheep/cattle while the fruit is in season if there’s too much windfall, for fear of sudden diet changes causing problems? What about nut trees? Hogs will gobble fallen nuts up, but what about sheep/cattle?

Standard tree spacing is designed for maximum efficiency of the tree growth. In wood pasture you want to leave enough space to also let light in to the grass. How far apart would you space the trees? (Goals are seasonally available shaded pasture, with fruit/nut crop secondary, and lumber crop last.)

[Does’ Leap]

We have several savanna-like paddocks on our farm that we graze with goats. I simply selected the trees I like (mostly hard maple that I tap and red oak) and let the goats have at it. Trees are 50-100′ apart on average. In this conversion process, we use pigs as well. June – September we have the pigs out in forested / semi-forested paddocks w/out shelter. As long as they have shade, they thrive with this set up. After the pigs, I seed with an annual (oats or rye) and follow with perennial rye and clover the next year after it has been grazed. Regarding sudden change in diet from the windfall, I doubt that would be a problem with goats (or sheep and cows for that matter), and certainly not pigs.

George

[bivol]

great idea!

i researched silvopasture a bit, and like it very much, here are some addresses:

http://www.forestry.ky.gov/programs/stewardship/Agroforestry.htm

Minnesota

http://www.unl.edu/nac/silvopasture.htm

and grazing cattle in mixed tree and grassland is the closes to where cattle originally lived, auerochs originally lived in such conditions at the edges of forests and mixed forest grassland.

[dlskidmore]

@bivol 19769 wrote:

great idea!

i researched silvopasture a bit, and like it very much, here are some addresses:

http://www.forestry.ky.gov/programs/stewardship/Agroforestry.htm

Minnesota

http://www.unl.edu/nac/silvopasture.htm

and grazing cattle in mixed tree and grassland is the closes to where cattle originally lived, auerochs originally lived in such conditions at the edges of forests and mixed forest grassland.

Very useful links! Thanks!

[dlskidmore]

This is mainly about pine forest silvopasture, but a decent set of material to look through: http://www.silvopasture.org/

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