Ep. 217 Agroforestry: Blending trees, crops, ecology, and economy| #GoodGrowing
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. Gonna be talking with MJ Oviatt about agroforestry. Agroforestry. I think I know two of those terms that have been smashed together to create that one term, but we're gonna learn all about it today.
Chris Enroth:And you know I'm not doing this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Welcome back to Illinois, Ken. We're happy to see you again.
Ken Johnson:Hello. Thanks. It's it's been a while.
Chris Enroth:It sure has. Your beard's grown five inches since I've seen you last. And then you'd cut it, and it's grown five more inches. So yeah. How was the how are the trips and travels for you?
Ken Johnson:It was good. It was it's kinda rough coming back. Spent a lot of time out West where there's no humidity or very little humidity. And in the mountains, were much cooler temperatures. So, you know, getting used to 70 degree temperatures in there in the day and fifties at night.
Ken Johnson:It was a little rough coming back to mid to upper eighties and nasty humidity, but we'll be we'll get used to it again.
Chris Enroth:Well, before the show, Ken was talking about his his trip to Death Valley, and I'm like he's like, oh, it's a 106 degrees. And I'm like, oh, so, like, 88 in Illinois with, you know, 90% humidity, you know, especially with all the corn sweating right now. So it's it is humid out there. And your garden looks good, Ken?
Ken Johnson:Yeah. I I walked around a little bit. It doesn't look nearly as bad as I had feared. The the mulch is holding up. So if nothing else, mulch your gardens before you go on vacation.
Ken Johnson:You'll save yourself a lot of headaches when you get back. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth:Well, there there you go, folks. You've heard it here many times before. Mulch is your friend. Use it. Alright.
Chris Enroth:Well, our topic this week, we are going to dive in agroforestry and the topics about agroforestry, kind of the the the subtopics, we should say. And agroforestry, that's one of those subjects I've I've read about. I've I've learned a little bit about it, but I've never really, like, dove into it, you know, very much, you know, just kind of knowing what it is in the back of my head. Ken, have you any experience with agroforestry?
Ken Johnson:I'd say I'm in a pretty similar situation. Read about it a little bit, but haven't really gotten into the weeds too much, so to speak.
Chris Enroth:Yes. Yes. Well, I'm glad we're we are both on the same page then. So I think it's time to introduce our special guest for today, and that is MJ Oviatt. MJ is with the Savannah Institute, and she is an Illinois agroforestry educator.
Chris Enroth:You are in Champaign, Urbana. So MJ, welcome to the show.
MJ Oviatt:Thank you. Glad to be here.
Chris Enroth:Well, we are happy to have you. Now I before we get into the the nitty gritty here on agroforestry, gotta get to know a little bit about you. So tell us a little bit about yourself, what do you do at the Savannah Institute?
MJ Oviatt:Sure. Yeah. I'm MJoviet. I've been in this position. I'm now going into my third season.
MJ Oviatt:I'm sure you all are familiar with referring to your life as through the seasons. So third summer with them. But my road to getting here has been long, and it's very entrenched in the Champaign Urbana community. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, but I went to U of I for NRAS, natural resource conservation or natural resource environmental science, and then got really involved with the local farming scene in town. I don't know if you've ever interviewed anyone from the local farms of Champaign Urbana, but I worked at pretty much all of them.
MJ Oviatt:I worked at Sola Gradia and Delight Flower Farm, and I worked at the student farm there at U of I. But when I was in college, I was taking a lot of horticulture classes. And at the time, there were some professors that were really interested in agroforestry, and I thought it was just the coolest idea. I really care about the environment and really wanted to do some restoration work, and I also wanted to keep growing food. So it really felt like I got to do the best of both of those things within agroforestry.
MJ Oviatt:So when I graduated, I worked at these farms, but my intention was always to get a job professionally doing agroforestry stuff. So about five years ago, I think that's fine. I'll say five years. I started working at Canopy Farm Management, which is a startup that came out of Savannah Institute. Now I was doing, like, field technician work with them, and then this position opened up at Savannah Institute to be an educator.
MJ Oviatt:And so now that's what I do these days. And I think my job is very similar to probably what you guys do at extension. I'm, like, an educator for a nonprofit. I put on field days. I do education materials.
MJ Oviatt:I don't run our podcast, but I do contribute to to ours sometimes. And, yeah, do a lot of adult education. So that's the gist.
Chris Enroth:Excellent. And what's the name of the podcast with the the it's Savannah Institute.
MJ Oviatt:The Savannah Institute podcast is called Perennial AF. AF stands Of for
Chris Enroth:course. Of course. I wouldn't think it stood for anything else.
MJ Oviatt:Yes. AF is agroforestry in my world.
Chris Enroth:I love it. That's great. Oh, yeah. I and I I I have been to a couple of the the local farms over in the Champaign County area. One of them I remember was a goat creamery.
Chris Enroth:That was an interesting place. Some really interesting ice creamer. I think it was ice cream. A sweet creamy treat. I'll call it that.
Chris Enroth:Maybe not quite ice cream.
MJ Oviatt:Yes. Berry fruits, I think, is what you're thinking of, and they're incorporating agroforestry systems at that farm, which is really cool. Cool.
Ken Johnson:Alright. So let's get on to the the topic for today. So agroforestry, let's what is, I guess, agroforestry, and does it work in the Prairies of Illinois?
MJ Oviatt:Sure. Good questions. I'll give you the USDA definition of agroforestry and then kind of give a, like, a human answer to that. Mhmm. So the USDA recognizes agroforestry as a legitimate agricultural system management style, and they define it as the intentional integration of trees and shrubs with crops and or livestock for economic, environmental, social benefit, so for lots of different benefits.
MJ Oviatt:And that can look a million different ways. There's millions of different kinds of species. It depends on where you live. Agroforestry is practiced all over the world. It's probably the original form of farming, period.
MJ Oviatt:We already eat a lot of things from trees and utilize trees in our landscapes. But these days, especially in the Corn Belt and in Illinois, our agriculture is so intense that we don't always incorporate other species other than the crop that we're growing or the livestock that we're tending to. So agroforestry in North America, agroforestry temperate agroforestry is what we do, is newer because we've lost it since, like, The United States basically was formed, and, it's kind of been thrown to the wayside. So we're kinda bringing something back. But, of course, we utilize a lot of the new technology that is being utilized today by other kinds of farmers.
MJ Oviatt:And now with all of our mapping software and and different science, like, it it looks different than it did two hundred years ago. And then if it it does work in Illinois, I think on the last long episode that you all had with Ryan and Emily, Ryan was describing what the Illinois landscape looked like prior to, like, European colonization. And we're called the Prairie State for a reason. We had prairie everywhere, but there are were definitely pockets of trees. And Savannah Institute's name comes from that part of the landscape.
MJ Oviatt:We had a sort of Savannah across the Midwest, especially in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa. I don't know if you've ever done a podcast or learned about this, but Champaign Urbana itself was once the big grove, and it was actually pretty forested and had a lot of trees. But not everything was just kind of like the Great Plains, no trees. There were trees in different areas across Illinois and coming up through Southern Illinois. Not necessarily forested, but 10 to 30% cover tree cover, shrubs, wild plums, and hazelnuts, and things like that.
MJ Oviatt:So agroforestry isn't just pure restoration, but we do recognize that Illinois did have more woody things in the landscape. It wasn't just prairie, but, yeah, we're we'll get into it. It's more than restoration, but it's also not strange to be bringing trees back to our landscape in Illinois. It makes a lot of sense.
Ken Johnson:K.
Chris Enroth:Now I I would say the when I get into the world of forestry, if I I stick on that, and it's kind of it dovetailing in what you just said, there's always this goal of, are we doing this for the money, like the economics? What what can we pull from the land? Or are we doing this for the ecological benefits? So how does agroforestry play that? Because in in forest, like, just general forestry, when I talk to a forestry, it's like, hey.
Chris Enroth:It's either this or this. It's like, can't we have both? Like, you know, why why are our goals seem to be competing with each other? So so, MJ, are we doing this for money? We're doing this for ecology?
Chris Enroth:Is there another thing that I'm not taught knowing about here? Why are we doing this?
MJ Oviatt:Well, I work for a nonprofit, so I'm definitely not doing it for Johnny.
Chris Enroth:There you go. That's that's how it's solved.
MJ Oviatt:Happy at my job. No. But, seriously, it this is kind of a funny answer, but we're really trying to meet it right in the middle between the environmental benefit and the profitability of these systems. We're recognizing that farming is a form of land management. When I was at U of I, the thing that I learned the most was natural resource management.
MJ Oviatt:That was what I was taught. And the way I was taught that was preparing us for being land managers for nature preserves and state parks, national parks, and things like that. But when I looked around and saw that, you know, most of what is outside of campus is cornfields, I was like, well, what about this land? And that's what all of my colleagues at Savannah Institute and the folks that started Savannah Institute were were wondering. Like, we can't just have these state parks and these nature preserves.
MJ Oviatt:Is there something some way that we can take the benefits that come from these high quality ecosystems and incorporate them into our production systems and kind of meet in the middle and benefit both, which we'll get into with the two practices we're really gonna highlight today. So we're I often say this in all of my presentations is we're trying to find that puzzle piece that's like or that perfect middle point where you can get a lot of those ecosystem benefits from the landscape that you'd get from conservation, but you're not completely just leaving something still. You can also harvest things and create some revenue off of that landscape. And maybe it's not the same as commodity and not pure, like, economic benefit. But in the long run, like, we can see that that may be even more economically beneficial than what we're what is the status quo in most of our state.
MJ Oviatt:So and then the other thing on that point, I think people often think I'm a forester, which maybe one day I will become one. I don't know. But my background is in, like, annual cropping. And I know some about timber production, but that's really not our focus. It's more so enhancing landscape and then doing some fruit and nut production is also, like, a majority of our work.
Ken Johnson:So what would what would be, like, a few examples of the benefits if somebody were to do this, like, on a farm or if they have, you know, a few acres of land and they wanted to incorporate agroforestry onto their property?
MJ Oviatt:Sure. There's tons, and I'll say from this perspective of a landowner or a farmer first, and then we can probably also talk about just, like, general benefits to everybody that comes with these practices. But the cool thing about agroforestry systems is that you are thinking about production. This isn't like, okay. Let's go in and just completely restore the native landscape.
MJ Oviatt:There's an element of that, but it's also like, okay. What can we grow here that will do well and we can also sell? So today, I really wanna focus on the two edge of field practices that we promote a lot of in Illinois, which are windbreaks and riparian buffers. And so, like, with a windbreak, you're incorporating a row or multiple rows of trees onto the edges of your farm property, and those trees will actually help the crop on the inside. They wind erosion can be really detrimental to our crops, and you see this a lot in the Great Plains, but we've also been noticing it in Illinois, especially these dust storms that have also been happening that is coming from, like, reducing the number of windbreaks we have on our landscapes and perennials that we have on our landscapes.
MJ Oviatt:Trees can stop the wind, block it, protect the inside crops. They also help lower evapotranspiration. So things that are growing close to trees will retain their water more. And as we see, like, big flex fluctuations in temperatures and and long drought, that's even more important to have low rates of evapotranspiration. Keep the water in the ground.
MJ Oviatt:So trees really help with soil health, and that's from wind erosion and water erosion as well. They retain water with their perennial roots like we would see also with, like, prairie strips and things like that. But prairies only get so tall, and trees can really protect longer. Sorry. My hand's getting caught between in my green screen.
MJ Oviatt:Trees are taller and thus can, like, protect further into the field than shorter things. And maybe one other point, which I'm happy to talk about this stuff. I'm wearing my tree crop shirt today. But you can incorporate things things that you also harvest in those riparian buffers and windbreaks. So say you are interested in doing, like, a specialty crop of some kind or you have some a partner that you can work with that will then sell that specialty crop, you can plant, like, rows of I have here June berries or service berries and harvest those or, like, black currants or pecans or chestnuts or things like that.
MJ Oviatt:So it's diversifying a farm. Not everybody's interested in that, but there's potential there in those markets.
Chris Enroth:Okay. You had mentioned maybe not everyone's interested in in this particular in agroforestry. But you know what? I I love that we're looking at windbreaks in riparian buffers today because Illinois is both windy and just it's flat. Drainage is an issue here.
Chris Enroth:Like, you have to really consider where your water's going and, you know, how it's flowing off of your field. Like, those are huge considerations for us. So, you know, if people aren't as interested in this, why aren't we seeing as much of this throughout the Illinois landscape? Or or, like, what what are the barriers keeping people from incorporating more agroforestry practices?
MJ Oviatt:Yeah. There are a lot of barriers. I think the largest one is that there's this notion that you really can't take any land out of annual crop production. And I think people are very into having really high yield, and that makes a lot of sense. It's very easy to understand concept.
MJ Oviatt:It's like, you know, sports, which I'm a big sports fan. I understand you wanna have the highest score. And when you take maybe, like, 5% of your field out of that production, you may see a yield decrease, but that's not always the case. And I think people their intuition or logic tells them, well, if I stop cropping a little bit of my land, then I'm gonna have a yield decrease. But when we see the like, what's actually happening, that interface between the trees and the crop, because of that wind protection, you can see increase in yield and, like, less plant stress because it's having its brother block the wind and and create a better microclimate for the crop.
MJ Oviatt:So I think the notion is, again, oh, I can't afford to take any land out of production, but the reality is ecosystems are complicated, and there's ways that we can incorporate different strata of plants onto the landscape, and it actually is beneficial for the thing you're trying to grow even though you're growing less of it. But the other big barriers besides just that that cultural element are land ownership. Nobody wants to invest in a tree. They're not gonna be reaping the benefits of those trees for the next twenty years. So if you don't own the land or you don't have a strong lease agreement with the landowner, this is we see this as all conservation.
MJ Oviatt:Like, people don't wanna get into a CRP contract. You don't wanna put in that work if you're not gonna get to reap the benefits. And I think maybe there's a lot of landowners that aren't familiar with agroforestry or how nice it would be to incorporate under your landscape. That's something I'd really love to talk with people with. So if you're a landowner, a nonoperating landowner, hit me up.
MJ Oviatt:And then maybe the last thing is something that I touched on with what I was saying before is trees are slow. Like, they grow and live way longer than humans do. They're like, we have multiple generations when they have their one generation, so they're a long term investment. If you plant a windbreak, you probably won't start getting benefits, that full mature tree benefit for a decade. There's some species that I'll talk about that grow really fast and can create that benefit in the first five years.
MJ Oviatt:But for these slow growing but really dense windbreak trees like evergreens. It takes them, like, twenty years to get to 20 feet tall. So there's government programs that help offset those costs, but it's kind of like a retirement account. So I want people to be investing in trees like they're investing in their four zero one k. But, yeah, it just needs to become a cultural thing again, which it was.
MJ Oviatt:Like, the dust pole, the answer was windbreaks. Like, windbreaks were planted all throughout the Great Plains in the thirties and the forties. It was, like, the largest, like, federal land management project ever done by FDR, and that was how the NRCS was started. So there's generations before us that are, I think, more familiar with the benefits, but we've kind of lost that knowledge in time. So, yeah, that's a little added bonus to that question, but we could talk about that later if you want.
Ken Johnson:So kind of sticking with the the windbreaks. I think when when most people think of windbreaks, they're thinking of your your traditional pine or spruce trees. And and you mentioned, you know, with your shirt, there's just there's other plants we can kind of incorporate that and make it a little more maybe multipurpose. I'm gonna talk about that a little bit.
MJ Oviatt:Yeah. Sure. Good question, Ken. The we still utilize a lot of evergreens. Yeah.
MJ Oviatt:I think anyone who's familiar with the windbreak, if you're really trying to create a living barrier, a living fence of sorts using evergreens like spruce and eastern white pine. We use a lot of arborvitae, white cedar as well. Makes a lot of sense. They create a really nice screen, and that can be both for annual crops, corn and soybeans, or for livestock and buildings and things like that. But what I think would be really awesome is if we saw more than one row windbreaks, if people would do three, five, seven row windbreaks.
MJ Oviatt:Habitat corridors are are really, really important, and we don't always have those in our landscape. We we'll have some nice, like, state parks or nature preserves, but then there's no way for these larger fauna to travel between those state parks. And this was something that was really brought up when I was in college. Like, this is something that we really need to be working on to make sure that we're having our larger mammals have habitat on the landscape. So when you have, like, a three, four, five, seven row windbreak, that allows for a lot more species and really cool species that have lived here for thousands of years to keep doing their business.
MJ Oviatt:And that usually means incorporating a lot of our native stuff, oaks, hickory, walnut. We work heavily with our local NRCS offices and do soil tests and things like that to see what would have been native to whatever area you're in. And then I mentioned earlier, you can also incorporate things that you're harvesting from. So you could do a fruit row of some sort, nuts. You can do things that are floriculture, so, like, willows and forsythia and you name it, like, roses even if you want to.
MJ Oviatt:But, again, if you're gonna do things you're harvesting, you probably still wanna protect those things from the wind as well. So not having it be just like one row of chestnuts on the edge of your farm field, they probably won't do so well. But if that's incorporated into multiple row system, then that could be an added diversified income stream of sorts. If you're going through, like, one of these government programs that are conservation like, our conservation program, like this CRP, they have a species list, and they're gonna want you to do very specific species. I don't know all the ins and outs of that, so I'm not gonna, like, go too in-depth.
MJ Oviatt:But things that are not native and are more horticultural in nature, like, if you want apples or something like that, they usually won't cost share, but sometimes they do. So you just kinda have to check with your local office. So, yeah, I can give some examples of what we have going on at some of our demonstration farms. I'll just make a quick plug right now. If you come to our farm in Urbana, that is now in its fourth season.
MJ Oviatt:It's in, like, unincorporated Urbana past Highcross Road. We have 11 different windbreaks there that are three row windbreaks, and they're all different kind of designs with those. So you can come and see for yourself what they look like and maybe get a sense of what you can do.
Chris Enroth:Excellent. And we will link below to the Savannah Institute, MJ, if it's okay with you, or you might throw your email down there as well if people want to reach out directly to you. So, yeah, read look in the notes below for contact information. So I do have a question. The the way that I have taught things in the past with extensions, so, like, with trees, for example, is what not to dos.
Chris Enroth:That is because and maybe, Ken, you can back me up on this, that people do not call us when everything is hunky dory or everything looks good. They always call us when there's a problem. So I don't have pictures of good looking trees or good looking plants. I have all of the wrong things, all the bad stuff. And I can use that as a teaching tool.
Chris Enroth:So I'm thinking now, MJ, if someone has decided, well, you know, maybe I will, you know, look at either at least drawing it out or or looking at plants or ordering plants for planting a windbreak. What are some things you don't wanna do when you are designing this windbreak?
MJ Oviatt:Good question, and I completely understand where you're coming from, Chris. If you hadn't yeah. What's wrong with my tree? It's not doing that's my family and my friends. That's the those are the texts that I got.
MJ Oviatt:I'm sure you get those too. Like Oh, yeah. Why isn't my hydrangea blooming? And I was like, I don't know.
Chris Enroth:Yep.
MJ Oviatt:Fertilize it. That's usually what I say. Yes. But you guys can tell me maybe later if you have any ideas on that. But I'll answer your question first.
MJ Oviatt:Some dos and don'ts, but mostly the don'ts. I think the main thing is something I touched on. You shouldn't grow try and grow things that wouldn't naturally do well. Like, do some heavy research on what is native to your landscape and understand what is gonna grow well for you. Don't try and plant some exotic species that might not do well.
MJ Oviatt:Don't try and plant a chestnut where you have very poorly drained soil. You're not gonna get a lot of chestnuts. Like, there's trees are particular, and each tree is different. Each shrub is different on what pH it likes, etcetera. So make sure your tree selection makes sense.
MJ Oviatt:Along those lines, if you're planting a windbreak in particular, you want it to be perpendicular to the prevailing winds. You don't want to create, like, wind tunnels. And if you're working with someone either from the NRCS or at Svan Institute, we can help do those designs, but you don't want to just be, like, making the wind problem even worse on your farm. That would kinda be bad. And then maybe the other two that are that come up a lot are trees can be really expensive, but they also don't have to be.
MJ Oviatt:There are state nurseries that sell bare root trees that are like those little guys, and you buy them in the springtime, and you plant them in the spring, and they're dormant, and they come in bundles. Those are the kind of trees we use in the majority of our plantings, even for plantings that we're doing timber production with. We'd like to just buy those cheap $5, $2 small sticks, and that's both because windbreaks usually take a lot of trees. Like, you're buying a bulk amount. So it's reducing the cost.
MJ Oviatt:But, also, when they're that small, they require less. So if you've planted, like, a bald and burlap tree in town or in your yard, like, you gotta go out and water that thing. Like, it is a big pumpkin tree with a lot of roots. You have to keep make sure those roots are moist. But when it's little, it requires less, and it'll take more time to grow, but it will also require a little bit less watering on your part.
MJ Oviatt:We don't water any of our windbreaks. I think we've maybe done it once when we had that really, really bad drought a few years ago. But you're you're gonna wanna get a plant that's not gonna be really picky. And then that last thing is but you still need to manage it. So Mhmm.
MJ Oviatt:I've I'm sure you guys say this too. Like, people will plant a tree, and they're like, oh, it's a tree. Like, thing is stronger than me. It'll grow. But, no, you have to weed it.
MJ Oviatt:You have to make sure there's not weeds, like, coming up and suffocating the tree. They trees do a lot better when you're giving it, like, a three foot radius. No weeds allow it to really expand its root system. Mulching it is great, but, really, that weed management is really, really crucial, even just mowing. I think yeah.
MJ Oviatt:People think grass can't kill a tree, but it can. Grass and and broad leaves and little green things that annoy your tomatoes also annoy baby trees. So take care of that.
Chris Enroth:And the the answer to the hydrangea question, just go buy a new one because there's, like, a thousand new ones that come out every year. So just enjoy the new hydrangea cultivars that come out.
MJ Oviatt:Okay.
Chris Enroth:We can't keep up. It's impossible. Yeah.
MJ Oviatt:Every day, I'm sure.
Ken Johnson:Mhmm. Just tell them, it depends. There
Chris Enroth:you go.
MJ Oviatt:Oh, yeah. They I say that a lot.
Ken Johnson:Alright. So you mentioned, there's another, kinda common agroforestry practice, riparian buffers. So, I guess what are first, what are these? And what are the benefits to, I guess, installing one of these in the landscape?
MJ Oviatt:Yeah. I love riparian buffers. I think they also should just be everywhere. I think riparian buffers as a concept is a little more broad than agroforestry that is basically any kind of vegetative buffer that's surrounding a waterway of some kind, be it a lake, a stream, a ditch, whatever, a wetland. But the riparian buffers that we talk about and design at Svan Institute are woody in nature.
MJ Oviatt:So that's when you're not just incorporating, like, grass or a prairie, but also doing it with trees and shrubs. So it's really just however much space you wanna give that waterway on either side, you're planting some trees and shrubs that are not necessarily what you would put in a windbreak. Sometimes it is, but there are species that are native to wet areas, things like persimmon and hickory and throw on some sycamore or something like that, elderberry. But, yeah, that can be really great for other kinds of habitat. Aquatic habitat really benefits by having some woody stuff in and around it.
MJ Oviatt:It's very much a restorative kind of agriculture system. And we also do this primarily for the water quality. We I think, Chris, you were kind of bringing it up. We see a lot of runoff, chemical runoff and fertilizer runoff from our fields. I think Illinois and Iowa are constantly competing for who's putting the most in the Mississippi River.
MJ Oviatt:Again, not really a competition I'm really interested in being part of.
Chris Enroth:We're winning. Like,
MJ Oviatt:I wanna this is golf. I wanna have a lower score than Iowa.
Chris Enroth:Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. We're supposed to have the lower score on
MJ Oviatt:this one. Yes. They always have to remind me of that one.
Ken Johnson:Yep.
MJ Oviatt:But I think I don't know. The funny thing about that problem to me is, like, that's just money going down the drain. Like, I feel like we don't talk about that enough. You're play you're paying to plant you're paying to put this fertilizer on your land. Like, you want it to stay there.
MJ Oviatt:You don't want it to just go flushing down the waterway. Like, nobody wants that. So with riparian buffers, I think the cool thing that we're looking into and we're experimenting with is, again, incorporating some edible or harvestable species in those riparian buffers that will act like sponges. Their root systems are really, really good at capturing any of that excess runoff, and it's, like, in the 90 percentile. Like, that that is why we love wetlands there.
MJ Oviatt:I don't know if you guys ever seen those videos of, like, water moving through a wetland, and then in the end, it's, like, super, super clear and purified. That's exactly the concept we have going on with these ecosystems. So you're putting that fertilizer on your field anyways. Maybe you can start harvesting something from those riparian buffers that are getting that extra nutrients and then also stopping it from going into the water and then, you know, causing a lot of damage in the Gulf and creating hypoxia zones and things like that. So, yeah, that's what a riparian buffer is.
MJ Oviatt:I'm happy to talk more about it.
Chris Enroth:I I like I I really like that idea because the there's I've heard stories from farmers, and I have a a I my yard backs up to a farm field. Their drainage ways are vegetated, but really just grass. Mhmm. But a lot of times, like, the farmers, you know, they plant, they harvest, but they do contract a lot out as well. They're not necessarily overseeing some of the some of those field operations that are going on.
Chris Enroth:And I've heard stories, and I've seen with my own eyes some of these, you know, applicators going out and just running right through these waterways just and and just destroying them and farmers getting upset like, oh, you've you've tore up my my drainage way. I gotta, you know, reseed it or, you know, we have to regrade it now because it was wet and and all of these things. But the idea of putting maybe some more, like, perennial type woody structure plants out there, I like that because it gives it more structure, makes it seem like, hey. This is kind of a hands off or wheels off kind of area. So I think that could be incorporated into more instances because, you know, we have fewer farmers.
Chris Enroth:We have more more more land in in certain in terms of what they're farming. So they can't be everywhere all at once. Now my wheels are turning, MJ. Yeah.
MJ Oviatt:Good. Yeah. I totally agree. I think, with all of these trees, they very much create a visual, an easy to see barrier of sorts. Like, trees have always been used as a way to, like, delineate different spaces.
MJ Oviatt:And doing that with the waterways would be awesome. I think I don't know. I'm sure you'll get a question if there's some farmers listening out there, like, what about tile drainage? You can't be doing this when there's tiled fields. And my answer to that is, well, we don't really know, and we're figuring that out.
MJ Oviatt:And, yes, we we're aware that this could be a big roadblock for adoption of agroforestry practices. However, again, we're not sure quite how much tree roots would affect tile. And I think especially if you don't have a tiled field and are particularly interested in conservation. If you do have a waterway, like, really think about adding some woody species into there because a lot of what's endangered right now is aquatic species. And, again, we're we have this really large issue with water quality.
MJ Oviatt:And that water also goes into our, like, drinking water. So this isn't just about the Gulf. This is water that also goes into, like, our aquifers, but also well water and things like that. So it's also a localized issue that's coming off of our farm fields. Yeah.
MJ Oviatt:I bring up tile, and then I was like, well, actually, I don't have an answer to that. I just want people to be aware that we know it's a problem that we need to address and figure out. But right now, we're not too worried about it.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Yeah. But the there there was a lot of the, like, the nitrates in the water. That was in the news quite a bit lately in Iowa and also up in Northern Illinois. And, you know, in the past, it was it was a much larger problem too when more rural folks were on well water, like dug wells, even drilled wells, but it it definitely was a problem.
Chris Enroth:And and here it is back in the news again. And we have dust storms and all kinds of stuff. What is happening right now? We need to protect these waterways, riparian buffers. It sounds like it's it's a it's like a viable strategy for doing this.
MJ Oviatt:Yes. And maybe one more international example that I think is really worth noting. In Brazil, we're we're seeing a lot of deforestation for corn and soy production, mostly soybeans. They're very competitive with us now. I'm not a fan of the deforestation that's going on down there, but they also have a lot more regulation around their buffers.
MJ Oviatt:So they're very much required to leave a lot of room around waterways down there. And I think it's worth noting, like, that's because we've recognized how vital, like, the Amazon is for the globe's oxygen and just, like, biodiversity, period. But when The United States was going out and converting these diverse ecosystems into highly productive ecosystems or highly productive agricultural systems, We don't have those kind of rules. So I think it's worth noting I don't know. Maybe we should maybe we should think about, like, we also have biodiversity in North America, and maybe we could be doing more of what the other parts of the globe are also doing with terms of, like, preserving just a little bit of the land for all of its benefits that it's giving us.
Ken Johnson:Alright. So you mentioned, earlier, but we'll remind people again. So does Savannah Institute have examples of some of this agroforestry, in practice? And then, like you mentioned, for your landowners, if you guys provide education or, you know, an instruction on this type of stuff.
MJ Oviatt:Yeah. We have a ton of that stuff. So we're a nonprofit. We're a research and education nonprofit. So that's the heart of our mission is helping people do this and also figure out the best management practices and best designs for this stuff.
MJ Oviatt:If you wanna come out and see some real life examples and you're in Illinois, you can come to one of our demonstration farms. I am the main organizer of our field days out there, and we have one in, like I said, Urbana. That's one that's a 120 acres, and it's one of the larger demonstration sites in the country that has windbreaks. There's also some alley cropping out there and different kinds of tree crops, hazelnuts, black currants, elderberry. And then we have a a little bit more of a simple demonstration right next to Allerton Park, the 4 H Memorial Camp Demonstration Farm.
MJ Oviatt:That one's a little bit older. That one's in Monticello. That is an alley cropping site with timber trees and then corn and soy rotation in between them. And then in Northern Illinois, in Ogle County, we are at Fields Restored. There, we have a riparian buffer that has some edible and harvestable species in there, things like pecan, persimmon, willow, elderberry.
MJ Oviatt:And that is in a grazing pasture, and then we're also doing a silvopasture experiment there, which is where you incorporate trees into a grazing landscape. And silvopasture is really cool. You guys should just interview somebody who focuses on silvopasture. Maybe another episode. And then, yeah, that's all the stuff in Illinois.
MJ Oviatt:We're gonna be launching a partner farm network next year in Illinois, which I'm really excited about. So we're doing this currently in Wisconsin where a lot of our work also is. And the partner farm network is private farms that are doing agroforestry would be part of this network and would get to learn from each other and also host field days showcasing how they're utilizing agroforestry practices. And I think those are really exciting because you get to see like, the demonstration farms are really cool. We're doing a lot of research there.
MJ Oviatt:But when you see, like, a real life farmer running their business with this stuff working for them, I think that can really make people see, like, oh, this is a viable option for me. So come out to a field day. This is coming out in July. We're having a ton of fun stuff, in August and September. We're hosting a big field day, all day workshop with extension in Monticello at that 4 H camp farm at the September, and that's gonna be really highlighting the wildlife benefits that come from agroforestry, both for people that just really care about birds and bees and wildlife, but also people that love to hunt.
MJ Oviatt:We're gonna be having some design presentations on that and talking about designing these systems for big bucks and quail and pheasant and things like that. So that's probably the biggest event I wanna showcase, but we do stuff every month. And if you go on our website, go on the events calendar, you can find stuff there. You can also I'll send you this to put in the show notes. And right now, we in terms of other things, if you don't show up to a field day, that's okay.
MJ Oviatt:There's a lot of information on our website. Should I just share my screen? I was thinking about doing that. Yeah. Okay.
MJ Oviatt:I wanna show off how cool our website is. So this is our website, Perennial AF. If you go up here, we have a lot of information. You can check out some different farms. We have across the Midwest mostly.
MJ Oviatt:That's where we mostly work. And then information on all these different crops. We have a plant breeding program where we're breeding some native and, like, native adjacent crops that have not really gone to market yet in America. So things like black currants and black walnuts are very, like, emergent and hybrid chestnuts and hazelnuts in the Midwest. These are things that we're collaborating with other people on and also trying to build markets for.
MJ Oviatt:And those get incorporated into some other kinds of agroforestry systems as well, but but you can do those in in windbreaks and riparian buffers too. There's lots of different resources. We're really hitting this at all angles. Like I said, we're doing, like, business development and plant breeding and training young farmers and demonstrating them and doing ecosystem science science so that we're, like, learning what species utilize these things. And are we really seeing water quality?
MJ Oviatt:Like, we're we're scientists. We wanna, like, have evidence of what's working. And then there's that our events hit on the calendar. And then every year, we have the perennial farm gathering, you're like, wow. I wanna join the agroforestry community.
MJ Oviatt:They sound cool. You can come and join us there. It's a big conference, but it's a lot of fun people from all over the country get together and talk about how to do this thing. So, yeah, check us out.
Chris Enroth:That's so cool. That's like your one stop, like, website for all your agroforestry needs. I've been threatening Ken for years. Like, Ken, we need to do more hazelnut stuff. So I'm going that website.
Chris Enroth:We're gonna look into this.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. I got five in my backyard.
Chris Enroth:Got one. Yeah. I got, like, the straight species, but I've always just been curious about, like, more cultivated types. You know? Like, can we get better flavor, you know, a little bit bigger kernel size for the hazelnut?
Chris Enroth:Like, I just I want I wanna study that more. So I'm gonna go check it out.
MJ Oviatt:Cool. Well, if I'll you could cut this out if you're like we don't even talk about hazelnuts at the end, but I'll add a little hazelnut plug. I'm really interested in hazelnuts. They are there's a native American hazelnut, which I'm sure you guys that's why you're interested in them. Yeah.
MJ Oviatt:They were all over Illinois, but they have really hard shells and
Chris Enroth:Yes.
MJ Oviatt:Smaller nuts than what we're used to buying from the grocery store. And most hazelnuts that we eat are grown in Europe. We're in Oregon, and the they grow European hazelnuts. But the European hazelnut is susceptible to an endemic disease that is in Illinois and in the Midwest called eastern filbert blight, and it's just everywhere. Like, they will get it no matter what.
MJ Oviatt:But, of course, the American one, it's evolved with it, so it doesn't get the disease. So we're working with folks from University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin. They are doing a lot of development with the Upper Midwest hazelnut development initiative to hybridize the American and the European and maybe some other species too to create some cultivars that are really good and and highly productive and economically viable for the Midwest. And up in Wisconsin, that's where we have more of those plants. But at our farm in Urbana, we have cultivated varieties.
MJ Oviatt:And I think it might be one of the largest, like, cultivated variety trial in the Midwest. And those are a lot of stuff from Oregon and Rutgers also has a really good breeding program. So if you guys wanna nerd out more about hazelnut varieties, I'm down. Come to the farm in Urbana. I'll show you the beast and grasshoots and all those.
MJ Oviatt:Have you heard of the beast?
Chris Enroth:I've heard of the beast. Yes. I have.
MJ Oviatt:Well, we're growing them. We have a lot of a lot of beasts in our fields.
Chris Enroth:Excellent. Oh, this is a road trip that must happen, Ken. Alright. I'll pick you up.
Ken Johnson:Road trip.
Chris Enroth:Yep. Let's go.
MJ Oviatt:Great.
Chris Enroth:Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. I because I I my hazelnut in my yard, I actually harvested it just from a wild one I found, propagated it. You know, I had, like, 12 seeds. I think maybe half of those sprouted.
Chris Enroth:One of them survived, me mostly. And now I have this, like, really cool hazelnut shrub in my yard. So but it was you're right. That the the the shell, I had to use a hammer, try to crack that thing. I mean, it was super dense, wound up, like, smashing some of them, but the like, that that nut meat on the inside is so good.
Chris Enroth:I think I you don't need to roast it or anything. You just eat it right out of the shell. It was so good.
MJ Oviatt:Yeah. I think they're the best. Right. Well
Ken Johnson:Squirrels get mine, or I get blank nuts.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. And
Ken Johnson:we've had those bushes for, like, six years now, and a couple of them are, like, 10 feet tall. I don't think I've ever eaten a nut off of them. Oh.
MJ Oviatt:Oh, you might need another pollinator. They aren't self pollinated. They need a buddy.
Ken Johnson:I've got five, and they're all we got I got them from from a coworker. I think she got them from Mason State. So Mhmm. I would assume they pollinate each other.
MJ Oviatt:Squirrels love them. Like, if you're in town sorry.
Ken Johnson:I'm sorry.
MJ Oviatt:Chris, I'm surprised you get nuts from your backyard. But when you're out in the farms, like, there's less squirrels out there, so there's less of a worry
Chris Enroth:with them. We got dogs, I guess. Maybe they but you have a dog, Ken? Buttercup? She's the most ferocious animal I've ever seen.
MJ Oviatt:It's a ferocious name.
Ken Johnson:Yes. Very.
Chris Enroth:Well, MJ, I I have one more question for you now that Ken and I have kind of nerded out about hazelnut. What what if you had an agroforestry project, and and I bet you do, but, like, let's say you had pie in the sky kinda dream budget, whatever, what species would you want in your agroforestry project?
MJ Oviatt:Are you gonna say where I am in the state, or
Chris Enroth:can I
MJ Oviatt:just choose?
Chris Enroth:You can Anywhere in the state of Illinois. It doesn't matter. You go Southern Illinois, Northern Central. You can be like, I'm in a valley in the West Central side of the state. It doesn't matter.
Chris Enroth:Yeah.
MJ Oviatt:Okay. Well, I'll give Southern Illinois some love. Okay. They I sometimes wish we worked more down there because they're already like, they're tree people down there anyways. Mhmm.
MJ Oviatt:They're surrounded by trees. So say I'm outside Saint Louis. There's some really awesome northern pecan growers down there, and I really love northern pecan. I don't know if you guys have had, like, fresh pecans from Illinois. They're different.
MJ Oviatt:They're not what you get at the store. Like, they are so good. You can tell how much fresher they are. Sorry, Texas.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm.
MJ Oviatt:But I'm sure they get them too in in Texas, New Mexico, whatever. No. That you can grow pecans in Illinois. And I think with the way our climate is going, it's just gonna get warmer, which means we can grow more of these species, and pecan will become more and more viable. I'm also a huge fan of hickory.
MJ Oviatt:I think that is it's related to pecan, and Native American folks have been utilizing hickory and hickory oil for, like, thousands of years. And I think it's just something that we, like, didn't latch onto in American society. So in my agroforestry system, I would love to grow lots of northern pecan and hickory nuts both for oil and maybe some hazelnuts. I'm a nut person even though
Chris Enroth:I have
MJ Oviatt:berries in my background. Yep. And then I definitely have this all planned out. Like, this is what I want for my future. It's yeah.
MJ Oviatt:A small farm, specialty crops. We got windbreaks. We're alley cropping with tree rows of nuts. And then in between, we're doing vegetables and flowers, and then there's, like, a little restaurant at the farm, and people can come and stuff from the farm. And that's that's that's gonna be my life.
MJ Oviatt:I'm manifesting it.
Chris Enroth:There you go. Mhmm. Let's get that. Got that in your your five year plan here.
MJ Oviatt:So that that's so cool. That's gonna work it's gonna happen.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. That lottery ticket. Yes.
MJ Oviatt:Yep.
Chris Enroth:Yes. Alright, Ken. On our road trip, we're gonna stop at a few nurseries. We're gonna pick up some northern pecans, some some hickories, and then we're gonna go learn about hazelnuts. So I I think this sounds like a great trip.
Ken Johnson:Let's do it.
MJ Oviatt:Great. You'll get all nutty like the rest of us.
Chris Enroth:That's correct. Yeah. Alright.
MJ Oviatt:I'd like to, I think, just add one more thing. I think sometimes I like just, like, saying this because I think a lot of us a lot of people think, like, oh, they're crazy. Like, this won't work. We can't do this. And I think I want to, like, recognize not every farm has to incorporate agroforestry, but if we incorporate some on our landscape, something in every county, like, the amount of good that would do is enormous.
MJ Oviatt:I helped plant our farm in Urbana, and it was like any other normal spring planting season. Everyone was out there in the field. It's all corn and soybeans surrounding us. And, like, you know, the land was just completely bare, but instead of planting an annual seed, we were planting trees. And we have just seen such a transformation just in three years of the amount of, like, birds and butterflies and frogs and, like, different species coming back out there.
MJ Oviatt:And I think, like, if you're inclined to do some conservation, maybe you have a few acres that aren't highly productive with your corn crop, or there's some weird, I don't know, trapezoid that you have, like, think about doing agroforestry there. Like, it will still produce something for you. We're happy to work with you. You're not alone and interested in doing this. So it's every little bit, I think, counts, and it's awesome to see with your own eyes the change that you can make on the landscape.
MJ Oviatt:And I think I'm sure you guys have seen this with your gardening. Like, just growing things will bring other life to you, and it's just such a joy. And it's something I love about this work. So it's my little conclusion for you all.
Chris Enroth:Excellent way to to cap this off. So well, that was a lot of great information about agroforestry. We dove into windbreaks and riparian buffers. So there's a lot to digest. Check out the links below in the show notes.
Chris Enroth:Well, the good growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. And MJ, thank you so much for joining us this week. This has just been an absolute pleasure getting to learn more about agroforestry, more about more about the practices that we can incorporate on our land, and then where we can go, like the hazelnut farm where I can learn all about the beasts and Grand Traverse and all of the other hybrids out there that are growing over in the eastern part of the state. I am looking forward to getting out there. Thank you very much for being here today.
MJ Oviatt:Thank you very much. Glad I fangirled two years ago at a conference with you guys to get Well, on the
Chris Enroth:it's our it was our one and only. So actually, Ken got another selfie with someone at the football games. There you go. It also He gets recognized a lot.
MJ Oviatt:It's a long run. It's a it's a long game. You'll get there. Yes. Okay.
MJ Oviatt:Great. Thanks, guys.
Ken Johnson:Yes. And thank you, MJ. I'm glad we finally got around to doing this. Next time, it won't take two years. Promise.
MJ Oviatt:Okay. Maybe on my end, it will.
Ken Johnson:And, Chris, thank you as always, and let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth:Oh, we shall do this again next week. We are up to our eyeballs in in weeds, at least in my yards. The horticulture hijinks will continue on the Good Growing podcast next week. So listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening or if you're watching us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.
Chris Enroth:Okay, Ken. You remember this is the Good Growing podcast. Right? You've been gone a long time. Welcome to the Good Growing podcast.
Chris Enroth:I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension. Blah blah blah. See, I I this is the only time I've ever messed up. Let me take that over. Start over again.
Chris Enroth:Alright. Take two.
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