Woodland Grazing was the focus of this year’s Farm Woodland Forum annual meeting held in the beautiful surroundings of the Falkland Centre for Stewardship in Fife, Scotland on 13-14th June. Jo Smith and Sally Westaway attended on behalf of ORC. Presentations on the first day focused on the ecological impact of grazing in woodlands as well as hearing from representatives from Natural England and Forestry Commission Scotland on how agroforestry is being considered for the next rural development programme in the two countries. An interesting afternoon was spent visiting first a new orchard on the estate where sheep will be introduced at a later stage, and then to Brackmont Farm where farmers Andrew Mylius has introduced his Aberdeen Angus herd into his amenity woodland with apparently little damage to the trees. The second day was spent up on the Glensaugh Research Station, owned by the James Hutton Institute, visiting the long-established agroforestry trials, where plots of Scots pine, hybrid larch and sycamore were planted at densities between 100 and 2500 trees/ha to investigate the interaction of trees and sheep in an agroforestry design. A more detailed meeting report can be found on the FWF website here
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