AGROFORESTRY: real green shoots

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AGROFORESTRY: real green shoots

(preparing the ground at Bealkelly woods, east Clare, where an agroforestry initiative is running)

Oliver Moore meets an Irish organic beef farmer who also has established agroforestry on his farm

Gavin Lynch's Hell's Kettle organic farm in Wicklow has two distinct elements. The first is beef. The second is a little more unusual: agroforestry.

There is more to agroforestry than simply having trees on a farm. Agroforestry involves integrating a range of trees, bushes and shrubs into the overall enterprise, in a way that allows for the wood, fruiting, biodiversity and soil improving opportunities to flourish.

There are numerous trends and types of agroforestry in operation globally. At Hell's Kettle Silviopasture and forest gardening are practiced. Silviopasture involves integrating livestock directly into an aspect or aspects of the tree, bush or shrub crops. Forest gardening mimics a woodland to an extent, but intermixes fruit or nut trees with a range of other plants - bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables – in a planned pattern.

So why did Gavin Lynch try this? “I was trying to think of different crops that would integrate well with our type of farming, that would grow well where we are on the land we have” he tells me. “Hazlenuts grow especially well around here – we're at a bit of an altitude, about 200 metres above sea level.”

“We have 4 acres of hazelnuts here” Gavin Lynch tells me. “We began by planting 1/2 an acre in 2010. Last year, we planted 2.5 acres, and ths year another acre. So there are over 1000 Hazlenut trees here now.”

The Silviopasture element involves using short legged sheep to graze within the Hazlenut trees.
“Southdown sheep are an old English breed. They are considered perfect for orchards, because they are not tall enough to reach the leaves. Once the trees get tall enough, we'll let the Southdowns in”.

He continues: “We'll start with a stable level of 10 ewes. It saves us going in with tractor and mower and cutting the grass. And we get a return from the ewes anyway – its two crops off same area. We'll also keep turkeys in the run up to Christmas – we'll let them in in the Autumn”.

The first Hazelnut crop, 120 of the trees, has already started to yield: “We're hoping for a small crop this year – about half a kilo per tree hopefully.”

The forest garden element to the enterprise consists of an acre of fruit. “We have top and soft fruit, all growing in forest garden style” he tells me. The variety is impressive, and includes apple, pear, cherry, plum, raspberries, blackcurrants, a pair of almond trees, Chilean guava (a little tiny red berry with a very intense flavour, like a cross between pineapple and strawberry flavour), dogwood, juneberry and aronia.

According to Lynch, “Nature's default setting is forest: its can be a very low energy way of producing food”. There are also ways to make nature work for you: “growing wild garlic or mint under a fruit tree to deter aphids and provide a crop, or using nitrogen fixing plants for soil fertility” says Lynch.

He outlined the forest garden's layout:

“It works in layers. The uppermost layer is fruit trees, and the canopy. That's where our pears, cherries, apples, plums and so on go. Then below we have a shrub layer with smaller fruit brushes. These have to be shade tolerant, and grow in between and beneath the top fruit. After that, its the lower layer. Here we have the perennial veg, raspberries, strawberries, then a root layer of perennial root veg.”

“So we use the same area to grow different crops on different levels. Its a very productive way to produce food. You can grow annuals, but perennials have a lower energy input. We also use climbers”

Like the whole organic farming enterprise, this aspect of Hell's Kettle is quite recent too: “Our top layer was planted in 2009, The shrub layer 2 years ago, and the ground cover layer this year. We're hoping that the plants will work well together with this sort of a design.”.

It will be interesting to watch this enterprise evolve in coming years.

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