The Agroforestry Podcast

This episode features Dr. Leo Sharashkin's seminar from the Agroforestry Academy, the Center for Agroforestry's annual intensive training program. Leo collects wild swarms of honeybees and keeps them in "horizontal", or Layens, hives to harvest forest honey that is free of agrichemicals and other contaminants. This special episode offers a deep dive into the world of keeping small bee livestock as part of a forest farming operation.

This episode features Dr. Michael Gold, Interim Director of the Center for Agroforestry, and Red Fern Farm's Kathy Dice and Tom Wahl. Often planted and maintained for their conservation value, trees on farms can also be an integral part of a farm's crop production. With diversity comes resilience and complexity: hear both academic research and on-the-ground farmer perspectives about the why, what, how, and when of perennial tree crops.

Native plants are gaining attention in agriculture, landscaping, and wild places, in part due to growing concern about competitive invasive plants, and the importance of preserving diversity for ecosystem health. Many of these native perennial plants can also be ideal in agroforestry systems for their varied and valuable products.

During the the Center for Agroforestry's intensive training Academy, Nadia Navarrete-Tindall, native plant expert and consultant, and Terry Durham, champion grower and organizer for American elderberry, shared their knowledge about and passion for native plants. Registration for the Agroforestry Academy is now open.

We've been sharing voices from the forest farming community this spring, and while there are MANY non-timber forest products that can be responsibly harvested for food, fiber, medicine, and art, American Ginseng, or Panax quinquefolius stands out; it is highly sought-after, for its economic and cultural value. In this episode, voices from the field share about the complexities of growing ginseng for conservation and for profit.

Check the Center for Agroforestry's social media sites to enter to win a copy of Jeanine Davis' and Scott Persons' book "Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal, and Other Woodland Medicinals"! Entries accepted until May 15th, 2019.

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In this episode, forest farming experts Jeanine Davis and Eric Burkhart share the fundamentals of forest farming, from site selection to medicinal plant cultivation. You can explore more from the Appalachian Beginning Forest Farmer Coalition, the Virginia Tech Root Report, and the forest farming eXtension resources.

What IS agroforestry, and why does it matter? Agroforestry professionals share their perspectives about how agroforestry can help us come together for ecological, social, and economic resilience. On this episode, we hear from: Dr. Mike Gold, Interim Director of the Center for Agroforestry; Keefe Keeley, Co-Executive Director of the Savanna Institute; Dr. Sarah Taylor Lovell who leads the Multifunctional Landscape project and is the Center for Agroforestry's incoming Director; Dr. John Munsell, a Forest Management Specialist at Virginia Tech; and Kate MacFarland, Agroforester at the National Agroforestry Center.

The Agroforestry Podcast is a place to dig deep into the world of trees on farms and farming in forests. Check out a sample of some of the people and ideas that inspire us at the Center for Agroforestry, and subscribe to this podcast on any app!