Colourful landscape, colourful group at the 3rd agroforestry practice round table

On the evening of 11 October, the third agroforestry round table this year once again attracted a large number of people interested in agroforestry, including some old acquaintances as well as new faces. The meeting point was the ‘walnut barn’ at the Birgel farm in Kalkar-Hanselear, where the nuts are sorted and dried. The Haartz family is currently in the middle of harvesting the walnuts.

The meeting began with an on-site visit to the walnut plantation, which was planted in the winter of 2023/24. Here, the 20 or so participants were already engaged in a variety of conversations that went in different directions. From pruning, variety selection and soil care to completely different topics relating to agroforestry. The tour of the neighbouring newly planted trial area with truffle-inoculated hazelnuts was followed by a short round of introductions. As the days get noticeably darker earlier in autumn, the group returned to the barn after a good hour, where nutcrackers and freshly harvested walnuts were already waiting.

‘It’s great to see how everything is progressing in the Lower Rhine region,’ said Prof. Dr habil. Jens Gebauer, who provides technical support for our agroforestry real laboratory. He was delighted with the popularity of the agroforestry practice round table in the Lower Rhine region.

Agroforestry planning areas wanted

Two participants told us that they are currently attending the agroforestry planning course organised by DeFAF e.V. (German Association for Agroforestry). Both are now looking for areas to plan an agroforestry system, which at best will be implented afterwards.The DeFAF explains on its website agoroforst-akademie.de that ‘an agroforestry system is planned on a real area as part of a process supervised by the lecturers to ensure that the learning experience is as practical as possible’. The planning is very individual as it depends on many factors. The location, soil, machinery used (e.g. for determining the distance between the tree strips), knowledge and expertise about woody plants and their care, the time available for woody plant care and more all play a part in the planning.

The agroforestry round table offers a perfect setting for networking and personal dialogue between interested farmers, agroforestry planners and other agroforestry stakeholders in the Lower Rhine region.

Location wanted for December round table

The next Agroforst regulars’ table will take place on 6 December. Anna-Lea Ortmann is currently looking for a practical meeting place: ‘If you can imagine organising the round table with us, please send an email to agroforst@hochschule-rhein-waal.de. It would be nice to combine the round table with a site visit so that we can learn together from other practical examples. The tour of the Birgel farm provided a number of starting points for further in-depth discussions, as we were able to see afterwards.’