Cows in Trees: A Warm and Witty Memoir of a Vet's Life

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Soil is amazing in many ways, and one of those ways is that it contains plenty of useful nutrients, which often cannot be accessed through shallower-rooted grasses or other plants in your farm’s sward. With trees, however, you can access them, thanks to their roots. These reach deep down into the soil profile and draw up these hard-to-get nutrients, which your cows can then benefit from by munching on your trees’ leaves.

According to a 2017 study from the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri, silvopasture can also extend the grazing season, so that it starts earlier in spring and lasts longer in fall compared to open pasture. Forage also grows better in silvopastures during the hottest times of the summer compared to open pasture, the study found. Probably around 750 trees and hedgerow plants. This season, we're planning to plants another 500 or so. I’m certainly not asking for charity,” she said. “But any business that wears the financial impacts to put out a litre of milk needs to be paid well enough to continue to farm so that litre of milk still gets on the kitchen table.Different trees have different rooting zones, he continues, and bring up different minerals to the surface, allowing different forage crops to thrive. The trees also make the soil more friable, and he has found far more worms at the base of trees then in the more compacted pastures that don’t have the sylvan cover. Many cows aren’t fed properly, he says, especially in the dry season, when there is little more than nutrient-poor maize stalks available. As a result, cattle are often in poor health, while milk production is low. His Shropshire farm has 150 beef and 500 dairy cows and went organic in 1998. Since then, he has worked with the Woodland Trust to introduce more trees, including willow, which is rich in salicylic acid, an active ingredient of aspirin. By grazing the trees, and eating a nutrient rich willow hay during winter, the farm’s medical bills have dropped considerably.

Willow trees: These have loads of health benefits for cattle, in part due to the salicylic acid they contain, which helps give animals healthy skin and hair. Willow trees also contain a natural pain-reliever, which means our cows can self-medicate when needed by chomping on their leaves Her Macleay Valley property, east of Kempsey, flooded after water breached the Belmore River on Friday. While she and her husband, Brett, haven’t lost cattle, they fear dormant flood waters will starve their grass, destroying their cow’s main food source and preventing them from planting winter feed.Trees are a cost-effective way to mitigate flooding on your farm. Thoughtful planting on farmland will improve soil infiltration and water retention. This will reduce the impact of flooding by increasing the capacity of the land to retain water; improving drainage of fields and lowering the likelihood of waterlogged pasture. As a beautiful bonus, trees act as wildlife corridors (nature pathways), habitats for nesting birds, and when in flower, excellent for pollinating insects. They're brilliant! It was actually out of necessity, to begin with. When we acquired Howemill it was half covered with woodland, so in our case, using agroforestry made practical sense: the decision was about working with the land we had. The scope of the project is huge and has so far engaged with more than 15,000 farmers. Most of the milk is consumed locally but there are alo opportunities to sell any excess to local co-operatives and milk companies such as Brookside, which is partly owned by Danone.