FEATURE
FARMER FOCUS
GEORGE SLY I’m finally and Agroforester! It has been 5 years in the making, but we have finally planted our first 16 hectare field of Agroforestry.
why, but my gut tells me that purely cropping annuals is not the right choice for my farm for the long term future. I maybe wrong and it’s not for everyone. Our agroforestry system was designed to overcome some key fears. We have planted it largely North/South to avoid the effects of shading. Specs: 24m arable alleys, 4m tree strips, trees planted offset 1.5m from the east edge and 2.5m from the west edge. The offset is to allow harvest traffic on the west side (side where the sun sets which should be dryer). We have started jetting drains, however I am not too concerned about the drainage as trees generally don’t seek the drain unless its blocked. We also plan to install new drainage schemes down the arable alleys over the next 10 years. If I wasn’t on heavy land in the fens, I am convinced from research I have read, that trees may in themselves replace the need for field drains. They help, not hinder.
We decided to do most of the work ourselves and I am so pleased we did. Farming has become quite an isolated world of technology, screens, twitter and stress along with some good times too of course! But if someone were to ask me what I enjoy the most from farming, it’s the time spent working with my close family doing manual work like planting our trees, not driving tractors. We spent the weekend chatting whilst planting, discussing the past, present and future, having laughs and enjoying the work. In the western world manual labour can be sometimes frowned upon, however it has such powerful effects on mental health and general wellbeing. My father (78), my son (2) and me (34) where all there to help with something that will shape our farms landscape for 50100 years. Bloody saw after digging 300 holes and shovelling compost and topsoil. I have a weird affiliation with trees, have always been interested in them, they make me feel calm and somehow give me peace in what is a stressful lifestyle. I have no idea
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Every tree has its purpose, and it has taken me about 50 books and 5 million hours on google to decide what to plant. We settled on two initial tree row types, the first field alternates these rows. Row Type 1: Hazelnut – we chose a specific bunch of varieties which have never entered the UK before (a headache with Brexit), they are grown largely for Ferrero (who consume 1 in every 3 hazelnuts grown worldwide) they have a very specific bunch of characteristics which I liked. I was very cautious not just to plant “any tree” but to heavily research the commercial output of the crop, even if they are sold in our local town, they have to taste nice and be disease resistant etc. I was also careful to choose genetics that will suit our site in 10-15 years with climate predictions. Hazels have to blanch well and there is a “blanchability index” which is how well the skins come off during blanching. I don’t personally enjoy eating them with the skin on so spent some time looking at this.
ISSUE 13 | APRIL 2021
