Twin Oaks Dairy Silvopasture Walk Recap

[Ben Roosa]

Hello all! We had a great silvopasture walk at Twin Oaks Dairy in Truxton, NY a few weeks ago and I wanted to share a few photos and notes for folks that couldn’t make it.

Our first stop was to tour a new silvopasture planting with a Trees-For-Graziers-style overpass system to protect the trees while allowing the cattle to move and graze between the trees.

Next, we saw a planting from 2021 that features black locust, honey locust, sycamore, and hackberry. Many of the trees are more than 20ft tall and starting to break out of their tubes. Attendees can attest to the excellent shade they are casting after just 5 years!

Throughout the day we heard from farmers and service providers about integrating silvopasture into grazing systems, species selection, planting design, tree care/protection, soil health, financial assistance, and more.

Kitty O’Neil (CCE Harvest NY) shared an excellent overview of local climate trends, their impacts on farms and livestock, and how trees can help mitigate some of those impacts. Check out this handout from Kitty for more information.

If you’re interested in learning more about any of the topics covered at this event or have requests for future events you'd like to see, feel free to reach out to me at [e-mail]. American Farmland Trust is continuing to grow our programs to support silvopasture as well as grazing and agroforestry more generally. I'm always happy to chat silvopasture and support however I can!

Ben