Tuesday 14 June
Bloomsburg with Mike Jacobsen for an agroforestry workshop with USDA staff. A workshop designed to provide a better overview of AF to technical staff. Useful for me as there was some very high quality presentations on land use in PA and attitudes to management as well as information on AF systems and options for non timber forest products such as Ginseng production. With 50% of PA in woodland its prob a difficult sell to many to adopt AF, but when landowners are looking at harvesting timber there is a real option to Thin woodland, create understorey grass and develop silvopasture systems with livestock….
We viosited Fork Farm in the afternoon where just that is being undertaken with thinning of woodlands and grazing with Angus Cattle, followed by free range poultry and then Glos Old Spot pigs in rotation using ‘mob grazing’ approaches – ie very high number for veryt short periods. i.e 10-100 cows per ac for 5-10 hrs only before moving then resting pasture. The principle – graze 30%, trample, 60% leave 30% to regrow – plus dunging and Organic Matter trampling leads to improved soil life and better productivity. Interestingly an analogy to ancient Buffalo
A strange occurrence was that we walked c.1-2 miles on the farm walk, over a road, up a hillside and down again. The host farmer was followed by a solitary gosling…who chatted all the way – a determined bird who was centre stage for all group discussions! A very good day. On the way back to mikes went shopping for T shirts and baseball caps for the kids and bough 3 pairs of levi jeans at £6 each!
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