Tree Planting Update

 In our earlier posts, we have described how the farm will be evolving over the long run, as we strive to sustainably raise our animals in a way that also improves the finances of the farm.  Ultimately, the farm must be profitable for our mission to continue, and we aim to work on projects that both improve the property and our sustainability, while also improving the bottom line.  That is why we have embarked upon a multi-year effort to transition the farm to a tree-based enterprise, as trees make great use of resources, provide tons of additional benefits beyond feed, and are water efficient as compared to irrigating our pastures.

We began this process in earnest last year, with the planting of several thousand tree seeds of many different varieties.  Some of the more important include mulberry, black locust, Osage orange, and chestnut.  These trees offer a plethora of benefits, but each of them is known to be fast growing, respond well to "browse" (trimming by animals), and has a high leaf protein content.

Of the trees planted from seed last year, we were able to plant out several hundred black locust and Osage orange trees that are serving as a combination wind break and fodder (feed) source.  These two species of trees have some of the hardest, most dense wood of any tree native to North America.  Osage orange, in particular, has a density over 80% that of water (it's so dense, it almost sinks in water).  Because these trees are so strong and dense, they work well as a windbreak, which has great potential benefits on the farm.  In our area of Salinas, the winds are quite strong and persistent in the summer, reaching around 20 miles an hour on a daily basis.  A previous windbreak we planted was a total failure, as the trees (soft-wood willow trees) were blown nearly horizontal in the winds, and never grew large enough to act as a windbreak.  This is unfortunate, since the effect of a windbreak on our property is potentially very valuable.  A windbreak will reduce evapotranspiration in downwind fields, which keeps water on the property, and allows for higher water utilization of forage on our property.  This allows us to prolong our grazing season, and will improve our soil over time as longer-living plants continue to pump more solar energy into the soil through root exudates and interactions with soil biology.  The windbreaks have always been intended as a feed source as well, providing multiple benefits as described above.

The rest of the trees planted last year are still growing out in pots, and will be planted out in the field over time.

This year, we have planted many more black locust seeds, mulberry seeds, and chestnut seeds.  But we have also planted paulownia elongata from seed, and these fast-growing trees have already grown large enough to be planted in the field.  We will also be planting moringa oleafera, often called the miracle tree, which is a fast-growing tree that grows in low-moisture/arid environments.  Moringa is known to produce high protein leaf matter, and may serve as a valuable contributor to the tree fodder system going forward.  Although it seems to be an ideal tree for our systems, it truly is a mid-latitude tree, that is highly sensitive to cold temperatures.  Most winters in Salinas reach a low temperature of no lower than 25 degrees Fahrenheit, which Moringa can survive, but just barely.  We do, however, have some winters that push us below that level, and many Moringas would not survive temperatures that low.  It is precarious to build moringa into a keystone of our system, given its sensitivity to cold.

Paulownia elongata, on the other hand, is much more tolerant of cold temperatures, and has a similar protein content to moringa.  The drawback to Paulownia is the weak wood that will do poorly in our strong summer wind.  We are experimenting with Paulownia as an addition to our tree-based system, but we cannot count on it going forward until we trial it out completely, and understand the dynamics of Paulownia in our windy conditions.

We like to think that chestnut will play a big role going forward, since chestnut provides not just the highly nutritious leaf fodder, but also the extremely energy-dense nuts in the fall.  There is one nearby chestnut farm (on the east side of the Santa Cruz mountains), that leads us to believe that chestnuts are viable in this area, but our cool summers may not be adequate for chestnut trees to thrive like they do in other systems.  Despite this, we are giving it a real shot, because the nutritional density of chestnut trees is massive compared to most other species, and investing in trees is a low-risk (albeit slow) proposition.