Hope Farm Agroforestry Progress

To date over 1,000 trees have been planted in the agroforestry field at Hope Farm with the help of staff and volunteers. Sophie Mott, RPSB Carbon Farming Project Manager, tells us more.

Over the winter we planted up one of our 11ha arable fields into an alley-cropping system, where you have alleys of trees in-between alleys of crops. With the help of a great team of volunteers we managed to plant over 1,000 trees of three types:

• Apple trees of 13 varieties that will produce Fair to Nature apple juice in a few years’ time.
• Cobnut trees of three varieties that will hopefully produce Fair to Nature Cobnut oil to complement our existing production of Rapeseed oil.
• Broadleaf shelter belt trees of six species that will grow up quickly and provide a wind break to protect the rest of the trees. These rows consist of; field maple, small leaved lime, hornbeam, wild cherry, hawthorn, and common alder.

Apple tree in blossom, May 2022. Image (c) Sophie Mott

This is a long-term research trial with in-depth monitoring planned for over a decade in order to capture the real time effects that this type of system is having on our farm. There are three main areas we are investigating:

• Biodiversity – we’d like to know how this system impacts our biodiversity from the earthworms underground to the birds in the treetops and everything in between.
• Carbon - we all know that trees are great at capturing carbon but we want to find out the accurate figures that our trees are delivering, along with accounting for any emissions produced in their establishment and on-going management.
• Economy – the farm is a business, so we will be keeping a close eye on the economics of this system to see if it can fit within a profitable business model.

The trees were planted into wildflower strips that were established the previous spring and these did not disappoint. Through the summer the wildflowers bloomed, offering a true spectacle to passers by and all visitors to the farm. These flowers have provided an excellent starting point to get the trees established. They helped reduce evaporation of water from the soil surface, keep the clay well held together with varying rooting systems, and give the biology a helping hand to get thriving too. When we were planting the trees the well established strips gave us a means to travel up and down and hardly leave tyre prints on the strips whilst getting trees to where they needed to be to planted in the ground. That’s compared to driving on the rest of the field where we would have certainly done some long lasting damage to the soil if we ever managed to get a vehicle off the field again!  In just a year we’ve seen the flowering strips provide an essential resource to an incredible number of species. Throughout spring and summer, they have been humming with invertebrate life, home to a great many pollinators, and a buffet for plenty of farmland birds, which has been wonderful to witness.  The improved ability to manage the strips by having wide margins to travel up and down has been practically valuable too.

Wildflower strips with apple trees in bloom, July 2022. Image (c) Sophie Mott

Unfortunately, we think we may have unknowingly picked one of the worst weather years in our history of ownership of the farm to try and establish trees. In their first few years, young trees are particularly susceptible to drought as they do not yet have the rooting systems to search for water in the soil. We were not anticipating such a lack of rain through both the spring and summer coupled with constant high temperatures. In early June, the saplings were beginning to show signs of drought stress and with no rain on the forecast, the Hope Farm team jumped into action. With thanks to the aid of a few dedicated volunteers, we have managed to water the trees every week since then and we are pleased to say the majority have responded well and are going to come out of the summer in good standing. Sadly, there are proportion of cobnut trees that regrettably didn’t make it and will be replaced this winter. This has been a truly valiant effort by the team to keep the trees going through this incredibly dry summer, hopefully we are due a good amount of rain soon!  Again though, we were pleased to have our 6m wide wildflower strips, as that gave us somewhere to travel up and down without damaging the crop, to keep trees watered.

Although we are so grateful for the effort that has gone into this agroforestry project so far, and we are very pleased with how the field is looking, it really highlights the effort needed to put such a project in the ground. Of course, planting a year earlier would have made it easier to establish trees, with the consistent rainfall we had all summer in this area. If drought summers are to continue to be more frequent though, it is worth making sure you’ve got the resources to invest time and money so you have a higher chance of getting trees past Year One establishment.

Ready to harvest spring barley in-between the autumnal agroforestry strips. Image (c) Sophie Mott

Now that it is harvest time, everything is looking a little more autumnal. The wildflowers are going over, and the Spring barley is coming off the field. We are preparing for the next year already, with a lot of monitoring planned for the summer of 2023 to check how the wildlife communities are changing in response to these permanent refugia that permeate the field and how they may be aiding or hindering our crops! Hopefully in a year's time, we’ll be writing again with some early indication results of what we’re finding. It’s all very exciting!

For more information please contact Sophie Mott: Sophie.Mott@rspb.org.uk