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Ask an Agroforester
Ask an Agroforester Webinar Series
Appalachian Sustainable Development’s “Ask an Agroforester” Webinar Series is an opportunity for us to come together for a deep dive into detailed information about specific Agroforestry topics. Bring your questions for our regional Agroforestry heroes!
All webinars are from 7PM – 8:30PM EST
April 6, 2023: Wyn Miller – Tree Protection in Animal Systems
Tree Protection in Animal Systems with Wyn Miller of Lick Skillet Farms. We’ll dive into tree protection methods, animal management strategies and overall design approaches with Wyn – an experienced practitioner with lots of on-the-ground expertise, tips and tricks.
Wyn Miller is an environmental consultant based in East Tennessee, specializing in climate-smart agriculture, silvopasture, and intergenerational farm transitions. She is a fifth generation farmer and serves as the COO of Lick Skillet Farm – her family’s century farm. Miller previously worked as a licensed landscape architect, in the field of stormwater management and ecological landscape design. Currently she is engaged in developing grazing and land management scenarios that reintegrate native species into southeastern woodlots and pasturelands.
April 11, 2023: John Fike – Forages in Silvopasture Systems
John Fike is a professor in Virginia Tech’s School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and is Virginia’s state forage extension specialist. John grew up on a small, successful family dairy in Franklin County, VA. After completing a BS in Science Education (Wake Forest University) and a period of global travel (including work on grazing dairies in New Zealand),
John pursued an MS in Forage Agronomy (Virginia Tech) and a PHD in Dairy Science (U Florida). Since he joined the faculty at Virginia Tech in 2000, John has engaged in diverse research efforts, including biomass-for-bioenergy crops and industrial hemp. His primary efforts, however, are with forages and forage-livestock systems and he has long-standing research and extension efforts with silvopastures.
April 25, 2023: Sean Dembrosky – Tree Propogation from Seed
Explore easy and accessible methods to propagate trees from seed with Sean. We’ll talk about different methods for stratification, scarification, and growing out. Sean will undoubtedly share tips and tricks for difficult species, and we’ll hear about innovative approaches to the backyard nursery and much more.
Sean Dembrosky is involved in Edible Acres, a permaculture nursery and forest farm experiment in the Finger Lakes of NY. Focused on low tech and no tech solutions to grow long lasting perennial food and medicine systems, the Edible Acres collective works to help more people decouple from hurtful and fragile large scale systems and deepen ecological resilience where they live.
May 4, 2023: Austin Unruh – Silvopasture on a Shoestring
Silvopasture on a Shoestring with Austin Unruh. Establishing trees in pastures can give great rewards, but also requires real investment of time and money. Join to learn how best to get trees established, how to stretch your dollars and avoid really expensive mistakes.
Austin Unruh is owner and founder of Trees For Graziers, a company helping farmers in Pennsylvania and beyond take their grazing to new heights using silvopasture. It’s his goal to make silvopasture as easy and cost effective as possible for farmers, which is why TFG offers everything from planning and funding acquisition to planting and aftercare, while also growing silvo-specific nursery stock. When not thinking about silvopasture, Austin’s favorite activity is picking berries with his young family.
May 9, 2023: Jonathan McRay – Wildly Homegrown: Sourcing, Selection and Storytelling
Hop into the melting pot of Silver Run Forest Farm’s nursery program as we learn from Jonathan McRay about grass-roots wild collection, resourceful sourcing, regenerative propagation and cultural storytelling
Jonathan McRay grew up in a small mountain town in East Tennessee. He has deep affection for Central Appalachia and its dark-green forests, hills, and hillbillies. He played in the woods a lot, stirred by stories of tree shepherds and forest outlaws. Jonathan worked overseas (in Israel/Palestine and Mozambique) before returning home to take responsibility for his life and history. He’s worked on diversified farms, studied conflict transformation and restorative justice, and was a founding member, mediator, and market gardener for Vine and Fig, an urban farm, education center, and supportive home. He regularly teaches classes and workshops on cultural ecology and restorative justice and works with grassroots groups and organizations to shape conflict as renewable energy and make decisions collectively. With Cornelius Deppe, he caretakes Silver Run Forest Farm, a riparian nursery and folk school rooted in love and living soil, sprouting out as agroforestry, watershed health, and restorative justice, all to propagate cultivars of liberating power to feed the earth and grow beautiful gift-giving cultures like trees so we can all have enough and be fully ourselves. The nursery grows beautiful and useful plants that cross-pollinate food sovereignty and ecological restoration, hybridizing gardening and gathering, farming and foraging. Jonathan loves the culture of land care and healthy community and supports that love with experience and education in agroecology and agroforestry, ecological design, soil health, plant propagation, and watershed restoration. He also likes well-placed puns and humanure jokes, and he’s trying to give up perfectionism in favor of joyful growth.
May 11, 2023: Eliza Greenman – Live Agroforestry/Silvopasture Design Consultation
Join for a talk with Eliza Greenman, one of our premier fruit explorers and germplasm specialist in the region, as we talk about her work and explore design considerations for persimmons and other tree crops in silvopasture. Eliza will conduct a live agroforestry consulting session to review initial planting plans for hog production in silvopasture on a Central Virginia farm.
Eliza Greenman is a fruit explorer, horticultural historian, and designer /implementer of agroforestry plans that integrate livestock (and humans) into tree crop systems/orchards. Outside of her farming endeavors on leased land, she is currently looking to purchase a location (in Virginia) to plant a tree crops repository for the Southeastern US. The ultimate goal is to assemble as many genetics as possible to create a nearly endless fruit, nut and leaf drop scheme that will substantially or completely offset the cost of grain needed to raise livestock in the Southeast.
May 16, 2023: Mark Kracwycz – Getting Started in Coppice Agroforestry
Getting Started in Coppice Agroforestry with Mark Krawczyk, the author himself! Join us as we break down the hardest part of a project – getting up the nerve to actually start. You’ll hear the basics of what is increasingly referred to as “resprout silviculture” as we move from goals and site context all the way to making those first cuts.
Mark Krawczyk, author of “Coppice Agroforestry” has been fascinated with the art of coppicing and other forms of “resprout silviculture” for the past 20 years, ever since apprenticing with British coppice worker Ben Law in his West Sussex stand of Sweet Chestnut. He’s spent more than 15 years lecturing, teaching, and working with landholders on agroforestry, permaculture, and small-scale forestry projects across the US, Canada and beyond, and traveling in North America and Europe to understand the ways people harness trees’ remarkable sprouting capabilities in a wide range of contexts.
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