Planting Trees into Pasture

Planted silvopasture systems can be as diverse as your imagination permits. Depending on your goals, you can simply add shade to protect livestock and forages from heat stress, or you can layer other goals on top of these. Your design and the species you choose to plant will look quite different, for example, if you are planting trees for timber (as is common in the Southeast US), seeking to produce a new crop for sale from your pastures (like adding a fruit or nut orchard), simply seeking shade for your animals, or planting a dense fodder block that can feed your herd for years to come.

Even if you’re sold on the idea of planting trees in your pastures, overcoming the initial paralysis of where to put the trees, where to source good quality stock of desired varieties, how to plant them, and how to protect them from your herd is no small feat.

Here are a few of our favorite resources to help you make and implement a plan:

• BF 235: Silvopasture online course from the Cornell Small Farms Program, taught by Eli Roberts
• Trees for Graziers is a powerhouse organization in Lancaster, PA that is planting tens of thousands of trees on working farms. They are thinking deeply about all the nuances of planted silvopasture, and their blog posts are fun to read. They have also published a helpful short book called The Graziers’ Guide to Trees, available for a small cost on their website.
• Silvopasture: How to Integrate Pastured Animals, Forage Crops, and Trees in a Temperate Farm Ecosystem, book by Steve Gabriel on planted silvopastures
• Visit the Webinar Recordings section of this site to view several presentations about why and how to plant trees in pastures, examples from farmers, and design principles.