The Future of Farming With Trees by Jacob Grace

The Future of Farming with Trees

Illustration by Paul Littleton

Not far from the DTour route, just north of Spring Green, Wisconsin, a farm field along the Wisconsin River appears to be sprouting an unusual crop – acres of straight, white tree tubes. Inside each tree tube, protected from wind, weather, and hungry deer, a young hazelnut seedling is growing. These perennial tree crops are managed by the Savanna Institute, a nonprofit organization working to catalyze agroforestry in the Midwest.

“We help people who want to plant trees on their farms,” says education program manager Kristy Gruley. Agroforestry incorporates a variety of farming practices, blurring the boundaries between fields and forests. “For example, you can use trees as windbreaks, as food and shade for livestock, or to harvest fruits or nuts as a crop,” Gruley explains. Agroforestry is a foundation of many traditional farming practices, and it can provide a host of environmental benefits, including carbon sequestration, flood mitigation, and wildlife habitat preservation. In the Midwest, agroforestry hearkens back to the native ecosystem that has flourished here for centuries: the oak savanna.

Drawing inspiration from this native ecosystem, the Savanna Institute was formed by a grassroots movement of Midwestern farmers, scientists and educators that came together around a farm table in 2013 to build a community of support for agroforestry practitioners, growing the movement from “grassroots” to “the treetops”.

“No matter where a person is on their agroforestry path, we’re here to meet them with the research, education, tools and community they need to succeed,” Gruley says. “It’s our mission to move away from destructive agricultural practices towards practices like agroforestry that can provide food and other profitable agricultural products on a large scale while also drawing down carbon from the atmosphere and regenerating soils.”

The Savanna Institute scaled up its own work this past year by acquiring several properties in Sauk County to be used as research, demonstration, and education farms. This new campus is in its early stages of development, but will be used to explore and demonstrate the many different forms agroforestry can take on the landscapes along this year’s DTour route.

You’re invited to explore the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of agroforestry for yourself during the Savanna Institute’s North Farm Open House on October 1st! Visit E6828 State Rd. 60 Spring Green, WI to learn more about how agroforestry can fit into the Sauk County landscape. Details at savannainstitute.org/events.

Jacob Grace plays a variety of roles within the Savanna Institute, contributing to the Grassland 2.0 initiative and projects related to grazing, silvopasture, and public communications.

JACOB GRACE

SHORT ANSWER

Marcescence occurs when a tree holds onto dead leaves. Such grasping is not usually indicative of a fatal condition.

Consider the accuracy of the following statements then answer the question.

To be awake in a time of extended trauma, one’s life serves as an engaged reaction to open wounds.

To be a tree when others are not requires reckoning, dancing, adjacent denial of death.

The act of letting go is necessary work. Such tasks are best not left at the door or tied to a pole.

Trees provide hands-on demonstrations of death’s non-obliteration. Plus, a tree is truly they, veiny systems maintained through shared labor.

Trust in the necessity of periodic full release, repetitive freefall, eventual flowers.

Remember, an act can be meaningful without being explicit. One misstep is unlikely to undo every previous effort.

To become a tree is to welcome the fruit of replicable modeling. Also, green is slimming.

Today could be about being an interesting person, connecting at the hip. Or talking about plants again.

A good title for this lesson would be: A Study of the Progression of Human Yearning for Reintegration with Nature.

Q: Can you define marcescence as it relates to your life and existence? Use examples from the text and your personal experience to support your answer.

—Laurel Radzieski