Hello friends

Happy spring!  (Mark here) It's an incredibly gorgeous day here in Burlington and I hope you find something similar wherever you may be.  Things are starting to ramp up here as the weather grows ever nicer and it seemed a good time to share an update as to where things are at in our process.  

Last week I printed the manuscript for the first time (at least for myself - Dave's done it once before).  It contains 10 chapters, 180,000 words (nearly 300 pages single spaced) so there's no shortage of content - but we want to make sure that the content that's there is as potent, relevant, accurate and practical as can be so I've begun what will likely amount to a serious amount of harsh editing.  I feel as if I've entered 'phase 3' of a three part manuscript development process.  

The first phase involved writing everything I felt I knew or could offer our original outline framework.  Then I've spent the last 7 or so months reading and integrating over 50 related books into that manuscript.  Now, I'm going through what I've written, pruning, consolidating, clarifying, and further identifying areas that need fleshing out.  This step will take some time as I'm concurrently going through our extensive list of academic journal resources, seeing what they have to offer and fitting them into the manuscript as appropriate.  It's exciting to see individual chapters starting to take their true form.  

At the moment, I'm refining Chapter 1 - A Cultural History of Coppice Agroforestry and it has me reading some fascinating research.  I've included some photos that show the articles I'm currently diving into, an awkward photo of me with the manuscript (it's hard to take a decent photo of yourself), and a sampling of the hard edits I've been undertaking on the manuscript to date (yes, that's right I've graded myself - A+ - no, just kidding, I was using letters and numbers to indicate where to place different sections as I rearrange things).

I hope this helps you all feel connected with our process.  It's been an involved one.  No one said it would be easy (or fast) and that's absolutely proving to be the case, but I can say that I find myself still thoroughly enjoying the process, learning new things every day, and feeling a deep appreciation and a humble drive to serve you all as best I/we can.

Thanks again for all you do!

Best wishes

Mark and Dave

Mark

Hi friends

Just wanted to let you know about this upcoming event Mark has scheduled in Woodbury, VT.  We're excited to initiate a new coppice stand at the Sawyer family homestead.  Space is limited so let us know if you'd like to attend - contact details below.

Saturday 2/25 - 10-4:30

I've recently been re-reading and integrating some great historical ecological research on European woodlands into our manuscript and thought that the following two case studies might be of interest to our friends and kickstarter backers.  There's some great detailed information in the profiles below which should prove invaluable towards helping us clearly design fodder based livestock systems here in North America.

Case Studies - Traditional European Wood Pastures

Ribaritsa, Bulgaria

The Bulgarian village of Ribaritsa, 10 km southeast of Teteven and 80 km east of Sophia, encompasses both level lowlands and steep slopes stretching 1970-2300’ (600-700m) above sea level.  Enjoying a frost free period from mid to late April through late October, the lowest winter temperatures reach about 10℉ (-11℃).  Receiving an annual average of 38.7” (982mm) precipitation, the highest monthly totals fall between April and early August, tapering off through the late summer and winter months.  In this area, pollarded trees border many of village’s diverse dry meadows dominated by the perennial bunchgrass Chrysopogon gryllus.  In July, farmers typically cut hay with scythes.  In many Bulgarian pollard meadows, farmers give sheep and goats access to grass and browse both before and during hay making.  

The annual hay yield varies depending on the precipitation.  Meadows average about 4,400 lbs (2000 kg) dry hay per hectare, though in productive years, it’s possible to manage two hay harvests, and yields may reach as much as 11,000 lbs (5000 kg) dry hay per hectare.  Except for the ‘collective farm period’ (post World War II though the late 1980s) when meadows were fertilized with up to 175 lbs  of N and P fertilizer per acre (440 lbs or 200 kg per hectare), the only fertilizer farmers apply comes in the form of manure.

Farmers actually only pollard trees during dry seasons, when the hay harvest falls short of their needs.  From mid-July through September’s end farmers harvest leaf fodder from hedge maple (Acer campestre), Norway maple (A. Platinoides), hornbeam (Carpins betulus), oriental hornbeam (C. orientalis), ash (Fraxinus excelsior), black mulberry (Morus nigra), oak (Quercus spp. - except for Q. cerris which is the animals do not eat), white willow (Salix alba), large leaved linden (Tilia platyphyllos) and elm (Ulmus spp.).  Only in years of severe feed shortage do they use European beech (Fagus sylvatica), while black alder (Alnus glutinosa) remains even less common.  They collect the nuts from hazel (Corylus avellana) and use the leaves medicinally to treat prostate problems and kidney disease in humans.

Typically harvesting fodder on a 3-4 year rotation, farmers climb the pollards, severing leafy twigs 3.3-5’ (1-1.5m) long with an axe and piling them for later bundling.  They tie bundles with a branch of the same tree or twigs of Salix alba  or Clematis vitalba.  They store these bundles, or leaf sheathes in a barn or on a platform raised 6.6-9.8’ (2-3m) heigh spanning between 2 trees.  Two workers can harvest 141 ft3 (4 m3 or 5.2 yd3) worth of fodder a day.  Unless annual hay yields fall well short of needs, farmers in Ribaritsa only feed leaf fodder to goats, providing cows, sheep, horses, mules and donkeys with hay.  On average one sheep or goat requires about 220 lbs (100 kg) dry hay or 35 ft3 (1 m3) leaf fodder per winter.

Valdagno, Vicenza, Italy

Here we present a summarized case study of Elena Bargioni and Alessandra Zanzi Sulli’s article “The Production of Fodder Trees in Valdagno, Vicenza, Italy” from The Ecological History of European Woodlands edited by Keith Kirby and Charles Watkins.  Their article offers a detailed look at the management of a small livestock farm in the Agno Valley of northeastern Italy.  With a humid subcontinental climate and 58.6” (1489 mm) mean annual precipitation, the area experiences long, cold winters and hot summers with a broad annual temperature range.  Located along the Agno River at an altitude of 2635’ (800 m) in the village of Castelvecchio, the farm’s soils derive from basalt bedrock and the steep slopes are prone to frequent landslides.

The aspect of the farm’s various plots have clearly informed their use.  Southeast-facing slopes were tilled, while meadows occupied the those aspects possessing less fertility, poor drainage and colder microclimates.  The wood pastures and woodlands were largely relegated to the northwestern slopes.

From the 1920s until 1992, the farm produced 1/3 of their annual fodder needs from managed pollards.  Mainly comprised of ash (Fraxinus excelsior), but also including black alder (Alnus glutinosa), black poplar, (Populus nigra) cherry (Prunus spp.), maple (Acer spp.) and elm (Ulmus spp.), most trees were managed for fodder production with pollards distributed throughout the pasture either singly, in groups or in rows.

Both individual trees and groups of trees usually lie scattered throughout pastures, whereas tree rows form property boundaries or divide tracts of land receiving different types of management.  These rows of pollards with shrubs interspersed underneath offer the highest aerial productivity while occupying the least amount of space.  The rows consist of ash pollards cut at 15-16.5’ (4.5-5 m) above the ground and hazel, hornbeam and Laburnum anagyroides are coppiced for fuelwood and browsed in the field during dry summers.  

Since farmers harvest branches every three years and coppice shrubs every two years, the semi-regular management helps minimize the impacts of shade on neighboring crops.  Farmers prune the trees’ lateral branches, leaving 6-8” (15-20 cm) stubs called gropi starting 6.6’ (2m) from the ground and ideally spaced about every 20” (50cm) up along the trunk.  Farmers often aim to create gropi so that they lie parallel to the tree row and along the inner side of the farmland property borders.

Pollard regeneration occurs either from natural seeding or planting.  Because pollards produce less seed and livestock browse many developing seedlings, natural regeneration is never completely sufficient.  Shepherds often protected seedlings they discovered, surrounding them with thorny vegetation.

The farmers raised 4 or 5 Burlina dairy cows, a local breed that produced 2.5 gallons (10 L) milk per day each, 25-30 chickens, a pig, and 2-3 sheep for wool.  From November to May, the farmers carried feed to the cows in the barn which included harvested meadow hay, leaf fodder (known as frascari) and grass from the woods that they collected each day as needed.  After the second hay mowing sometime between May and October, cattle grazed the wooded pastures and meadows.  During drought years farmers supplemented feed rations with green leaves from shredded trees.

Farmers harvested two types of fodder from pollards - broco - leaves from shredded/pollarded trees used directly as fodder (often from the thin branches of the crown), and frascari (essentially faggots) - branches and leaves that they harvested, dried and stored for use as winter feed.  Farmers most commonly fed stock ash fodder though they also used alder, poplar and hazel fresh.  Because beech often emerges early in spring before grasses have emerged, its new shoots provided a valuable early-season feed.

Usually every three years, farmers harvest frascari with a billhook, or cortelon, during the second half of August.  During the two years between harvests they pick the tree leaves and use them as feed.   Farmers actually begin harvesting a pollard by first shredding leaves from the branches comprising the top of the crown, feeding them to cows fresh.  They then cut fascari, leaving the stems on the ground to dry for a day.  At this point the shoots stretch about 5’ (1.5 m) in length.  They then bundle the harvested frascari stems into faggots 10-12” (25-30cm) in diameter and bind them with shoots of Laburnum anagryoides.  They leave these faggots standing in the field for another 2-3 days before piling them flat in crisscrossed layers in the barn for storage.

It takes 3-4 hours to collect fodder from a single tree, and the case study farm retains 200-300 fodder trees.  Each tree produces approximately 17.5 ft3 (1/2 m3) fresh leaves and 8-10 faggots.  Annually 85-100 trees produced between 700-1000 faggots.  

Before feeding to livestock, farmers leave the fodder out during the morning hours to absorb moisture.  They then shred the leaves from the branches and feed them to the cows, saving the twigs for fuel.  Each cow normally consumes one faggot per day.  A productivity analysis of conventional pasture versus wood pasture found that on a hectare for hectare basis, the mix of feed produced from pollarded wood pasture supports one more cow per hectare (0.4  more cows per acre) than feeding from a landscape only producing hay.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit my friends, the Sawyer's, at their family homestead in Woodbury, VT.  I first heard about Dave Sawyer six or seven years ago - his reputation preceded him as an immensely talented, kind, and knowledgable green woodworker, known especially for his mastery of the art of windsor chairmaking.  (Check out some of Dave's work at http://www.windsorchairresources.com/sawyer.html).  In fact, Dave helped inspire the work of my woodworking teacher Drew Langsner in North Carolina in the early 80s.

I first had the opportunity to meet Dave a few years ago, visiting his home and workshop.  I was impressed with the quality of his work and the modesty with which he produces it, most definitely embodying the spirit of a traditional woodworker, living a simple life that revolves around the things that are truly important in life.

Sometime thereafter I met his daughter Annie, who completed a Permaculture Design Course this past summer at Prospect Rock Permaculture, co-taught by Keith Morris, Lisa DePiano, Alissa White and myself.  Having grown up on the Sawyer's land, Annie has a deep connection to the property as well as to the skills that make it possible to live a life in relationship with what it has to offer.  

Annie had previously mentioned to me that she and her brother had been planning to initiate coppicing of an existing stand of red maple, and her final design project for the course included this as an integral part of the site's productive capacity.  I was intrigued and agreed to come by for another visit the next time I was in the area.  Months passed, and I recently had a good excuse to take a slight detour and examine the stand more closely.

I arrived to find a 3-4 acre plot. largely dominated by red maple, with significant potential.  Annie and her brother George escorted me throughout the stand, describing the site's history and their vision and needs.  Red maple (Acer rubrum) is an exceedingly common eastern tree species that often naturally exhibits a multi-stemmed.  It undeniably lends itself to coppice management.  Unfortunately, the species proves to be less-than-exceptional for most applications.  With a density of 34.4 lbs/cubic foot (as compared to 52.5 for black locust - the densest species growing in the northeastern forest) and 18.7 million BTUs per cord (as compared to 27.7 for hickory), it's a relatively lightweight species with a moderate value as fuelwood.  The wood proves to be poor in decay resistance, offering little long-term potential for outdoor uses.  But... it grows and gives of itself freely.  And as I like to say, 'When God gives you red maple... you make (insert useful function here)!'

What I'm getting at is that while not exceptional at any particular function, red maple proves to be well suited to the site, and as such, it makes a lot of sense to use it - especially when their needs are fairly straightforward - building poles (for roundwood structures, yurts, tipis, etc; and fuelwood).  

This particular stand appeared to be just about optimal for conversion to coppice management.  Largely east-southeast facing, the existing trees were closely spaced, with individual stems often between 6-10' from one another, and relatively young (Annie and George, in their mid-late 20s, explained that the stand was an open field during their youth, having been left to the process of succession sometime in the last 10-15 years), they should respond well to cutting and prove to be productive, with only a moderate need to fill in gaps between individuals to help increase productivity, and encourage straight, upright growth while outcompeting herbaceous vegetation in the understory.

The landscape also provided some very useful topographical patterns that clearly suggested boundaries between individual cants (contiguous areas of coppice).  Based on their needs and the existing growth on the site (about 4" dbh after roughly 12 years growth), we decided that a 10 year harvest rotation seemed to make the most sense to provide them with the materials they desired.  Thus, we were able to break up the stand into 5 separate cants, approximately 0.4-0.5 acres in size that they could clearcut every other year to provide a polewood and fuelwood yield.  The stand also featured a number of more mature existing trees having persisted for a few decades prior to the succession of the field.  These included a number of sugar maples, black cherry as well as red maple.  We discussed leaving these as standards - depending on their location (relationship to the to-be-coppiced red maple) probably 4-8 per cant - that could be grown on for lumber and/or maple sugaring.

To optimize the productivity of the coppice regrowth, we talked about starting by cutting the cant along the southernmost edge of the stand and progressively working north (upslope - see attached photo with cant boundaries - note that the stand marked 'cant 4' lies at the high point of this portion of the property) so as to maximize each stand's access to incoming solar radiation and minimize shading from more mature stands.  

In terms of access, they had already created a rough primary road running roughly east-west up the slope which provides truck access to much of the stand - and an existing 'terrace' that appeared to be the remnants of an old farm/logging road running (north-south) through the southern portion of the property could be reopened and expanded to provide a stable extraction route for harvested polewood.

In parts of the cants where growth was a bit more sparse, we discussed either layering in coppice shoots after they've begun to grow, 'stooling-up' individual stools to produce rooted clones for transplanting, or introducing new species to the stand to further diversify the mix and further support their needs.  (They were particularly interested in black locust [Robinia pseudoacacia] for fencing and building materials and fuel).

Probably one of the biggest challenges to coppice establishment will prove to be deer browse, as they've already seen clear evidence of their presence on the site.  We discussed the options, and while fencing seems to be the only 'sure' form of protection, they may likely elect to take a wait-and-see approach before making the investment.  This will definitely prove to be a challenge for most folks implementing coppice management on their homesteads, and it's something we'll discuss in detail in our book.

In addition to the quality and accessibility of the existing stand, probably the most promising aspect of the Sawyer's property is their eagerness to engage with coppice and the immediate needs it will serve for them.  It will most definitely prove to take time and energy to transform the stand to its true potential, but it's clear that Annie and George are up for the task.

To help them along in the process and also provide an opportunity for others to explore the design, establishment, harvest and management of a developing coppice stand, we've agreed to host an open work party/workshop over a to-be-determined weekend in February during the course of which we'll harvest 'cant 1', limb the harvested polewood, discuss value-adding potential and green woodworking skills, and explore the practical aspects of coppice stand design.  Once we've selected a date and have more details, we'll post an update - it will definitely prove to be a strong, practical, hands-on opportunity to engage with coppice.

In the meantime, Dave and I would love to hear about projects any of you may have in the works - we're continuing to pour our lives into the manuscript and species database, and the broader the breadth of practical experience we have to draw on, the better.  Thanks so much to you all and happy solstice!

Mark