Plant The Trees

Costa Rica has one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Quite a few years ago now, they dissolved their military and placed their focus on services. Not just education and public health, but ecosystem services. Water quality, flood mitigation, biodiversity, weather stability…Scott Gallant is an agroforestry practitioner based in Costa Rica, and has worked there for over a decade. Today we dove into the agriculture, agroforestry, and agrotourism of Costa Rica. We talked about how trees create experiences, and how recreation might be the most accessible ecosystem service for farmers.We talked syntropic farming, and making it accessible. Understory and overstory tree crops, perennial vegetables, how we experience some of the best food you can grow.How do you design agroforestry for a hospitality operation? Where is the overlap between agrotourism in Costa Rica, The United States, and Italy? Without further ado, please welcome Scott Gallant.

We’re planting all of these trees, many of which carry the goal of ecological benefit: conservation, regeneration, fish, wildlife, water quality, flood mitigation, relative homeostasis in weather and climate. But what does intact nature really look like in the forested biome (biomes) of the Northeast United States? The Mid Atlantic, Great Lakes, the Humid midwest? How can we know? How can we get there?There is no one answer, and often many answers are inherent, given that diversity is the spice of life and the spice of the forest.Ethan Tapper is a forester from Vermont.He’s an internationally-recognized ecologist, and bestselling author of How to Love a Forest. An Audobon-endorsed forester, Ethan works with landowners to steward forests for both wildlife habitat and income.Ethan works as a consulting forester across Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Maine, and served as the Chittenden County Forester from 2016-2024. Ethan stewards Bear Island, his 175 acre forest, homestead and sugarbush in Vermont.

Darren J. Doherty, founder of Regrarians, is a pioneer in modern regenerative agriculture and agroforestry in the anglosphere and beyond. He’s planned hundreds of farms across Australia, New Zealand, The United States, Vietnam, India, The Country of Georgia, Mediterranean Europe, and beyond. Today we’ll dive into the mechanization of planting trees. Trees are permanent infrastructure, so you want to plant them in the right place, the first time, and in the most efficient way possible. Often that means mechanization, from soil preparation and simply marking where the trees go, to understory management and fertilization. He has been a trusted advisor of Propagate since we started the business 10 years, and without further ado, here is Darren Doherty.

How do you further mechanize tree planting? Where are the leverage points? How do you get the trees on a perfect grid or a Keyline grid, at inch-accurate, GPS-guided intervals? Can you mow, subsoil, rototill, seed, and mark all in the same tractor pass?Bob Walker is a core member of the Propagate Team. He has decades of experience farming, and I’m really thrilled to finally get him on the podcast, because he’s the guy that makes all of our work truly efficient and effective.Here we’ll dive into soil prep, tree planting, and a whole lot more.

Jeremy Kaufman, together with our CEO Ethan Steinberg, and I, started working on Propagate in 2016. 10 years later, we have some insight into planting trees on farms, not without the standard battle scars of entrepreneurship. Today, we walk through why trees need to make money, the financial and economic bottlenecks in agroforestry, working with farmers and not replacing farmers, Jeremy’s family business in the wood products industry, and why black locust and chestnuts stand out.

It’s one thing to plant trees. And stewarding a chestnut ecosystem is a multigenerational endeavor. Today we’ll dive into chestnut yields, harvest and post-harvest processing, predatory wasps and soil nematodes, chestnut buyers & markets, and a lot more. This might be the most information-dense episode yet. Dr. Amy Miller is a wealth of knowledge, and we’re thrilled to bring this conversation to you.Route 9 CooperativePropagate Website

Before you plant apples, blueberries, and black walnut, try these 5 species instead. I started out 15 years ago planting black walnut and apples, because apples are the go-to fruit and black walnut veneer logs can pay off a mortgage. But what other species can feed us, create economic value, and provide ecosystem benefit with a more gradual learning curve?For best-fit tree options on non-forested land that you own or manage, don't hesitate to reach out to our team: https://www.propagateag.com/contact-us

How are we paying for trees? How are you paying for trees?At the end of the day, there is no free lunch. We’re either paying with our time, or paying with our wallet.We’re going to explore both sides of that coin, and hopefully leave you with a better understanding of funding agroforestry in the United States. If you’re not in the US, you’ll still get a lot out of this episode.Link for how to work with us: https://www.propagateag.com/technical-assistance

Farmland is often considered marginal because it’s rocky, steep, or because the soils are too shallow. But in much of the northeast and midwest, farmland is “sub prime” or less productive because it’s wet or poorly drained. Not wetland, but damp farmland that’s harder to access until it’s dry in mid summer. The question here is: what tree crops work for this soil? Chestnuts don’t like clay, or wet feet. But yellowbud or bitternut hickory is a great fit, and this tree produces high quality culinary oil for cooking, baking, salads, and bread. It tastes really good.Jesse Marksohn is a pioneer of growing hickory trees for oil, and he might be the best person in the United States to speak on the topic. Carya cordiformis is hardy from Northern Florida to Northern Minnesota, so the range is huge, and so is the value proposition for ecosystems and farms.

Global perspectives on forest-driven economies. It’s easy to confine ourselves and our thinking to our own countries, states, and bioregions. But we all live on one planet, and the integrity of our rural economies and our ecosystems reaches beyond the borders of our nation states. Today we’re joined by İsmail Belen and Marton Németh. İsmail is from the country of Türkiye (Turkey), and he is the Chair of the United Nations Forum on Forests and the Inspector General of The Turkish Forest Service. Márton Németh leads Silvanus Forestry, from the country of Hungary. Silvanus specializes in improved tree genetics for industrial roundwood, namely shipmast black locust.Here we dive into forests in Turkey, and how trees create rural livelihoods and increase ecosystem function in a mediterranean climate that’s been farmed for a very long time.What role do non-native pioneer trees play?When does honey production from forests create more value than wood?How does black locust reduce erosion and improve marginal soils?How does Turkey steward $4b toward forestry?Monoculture forestry vs. multi-species multi-yield plantations?Chestnuts as non timber forest products?We’re going to talk about it all in plain English, even though we speak a combined seven languages.There’s a lot of good info in this episode.

Byron and I first encountered syntropic agroforestry in the same way. There was a stunning documentary released in 2014 called Life in Syntropy. It profiled farms in Brazil utilizing planned ecological succession to grow food and restore the vibrant, verdant Atlantic Rainforest.Now we both incorporate the processes and practices of syntropy into our work, Byron to a much greater extent than I do. We always look to adapt the principles to different people and landscapes around the world.We ask questions such as: On the continuum from ecological reforestation with a bit of food along the way, to productive agriculture that increases biodiversity and grows its own biomass, what is the optimum trajectory given the wills and desires of a land manager?We dive into ease of management, and communicating complex agroforestry tactics to a diverse audience.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Julie Richards stewards the operations of Ohio Chestnuts and Wintergreen Tree Farm. 200+ acres of chestnuts produce great food for real people, while improving water quality in the streams and creeks that flow into Lake Erie.Julie grew up with chestnuts, and came back to the family farm not just because chestnuts are really satisfying crop to work with, and not just because she had the opportunity, but because it was a really good financial and logistical decision for her and her family.Here we’ll dive into not just chestnut genetics, but chestnut markets and how to sell the crop.Please join us for an informative, nuanced conversation with Julie Richards.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

It’s 1972. Led Zeppelin IV just hit the airwaves, and Greg Miller is planting chestnut trees as a junior in high school. With time on his side, he goes on to get a PhD in plant breeding, and vastly improves chestnut yields, nut quality, and disease resistance.50 years later, the trees are still bearing huge crops. Greg has planted tens of thousands more trees, having refined the genetics over multiple generations of Chinese Chestnut and Chinese-American hybrids. Widely regarded as the pioneer of commercial chestnut growing in the United States, we’d need 40+ hours of audio to cover Greg’s wealth of knowledge. For now, please join us for a conversation with Greg Miller of Empire Chestnut and the Route 9 Chestnut Cooperative.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

What do agroforestry-interested land managers have in common? And how do they differ? Are they open minded and risk averse? Are they extroverted and orderly? Our hypotheses, based on working in this space for 10 years, may surprise you. It’s well established that we have to fit the tree species to the soil type.  Listen on if you’re curious about aligning the tree species with the people that are managing the land. Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Russell Wallack, founder of Breadtree, joins us to talk chestnuts and perennial pantry stables.Breadtree farms on 800 acres in the Upper Hudson Valley (NY) and Southwest Vermont, where they steward 20,000+ food-producing trees and shrubs — including chestnut, hickory, oak, seaberry, apple, pear, mulberry, and persimmon — in orchards grazed by sheep and cattle. The practice of raising food crops, trees, and animals together has a long history in many cultures, and (today) is often called agroforestry.Russell believes chestnut trees — an ancient staple food across the temperate world — play an integral role in recreating an agriculture of place; he has dedicated the past 8 years to creating a viable business centered on the growth of a regional industry for this tree crop. Outside of Breadtree, Russell has consulted internationally with multi-billion dollar food supply systems, advised the European Commission on regenerative agriculture policy, and worked with leading regenerative agriculture organizations to impact thousands of acres.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Planting trees? On farmland? But what about feeding the world? There’s a lot wrapped up in this question, and we’re here to bring you the frameworks and the data on how agroforestry can feed the world with caloric staple crops, ecosystem services, and financially successful farms.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Take a listen to this phenomenal interview with Dana Shapiro, CEO of the Hawai‘i Ulu Cooperative. Ulu is the Hawaiian word for Breadfruit, which is a tree crop starch that traveled across the Pacific Ocean in canoes, and can still grow straight out of lava rock. And the conversation got. good. and I think we did a solid job of profiling this case study in rebuilding a food system with agroforestry. Hawai‘i imports 90% of its food, while half its farmland is fallow. Meanwhile, Dana and her team are harvesting over 200,000 pounds of breadfruit every year, building a farmer-owned supply chain across four islands. They are proving that this ancient crop can once again feed communities.And this isn’t just a feel-good story. We talk about the real life economics of getting ulu into the market and onto dinner plates in Hawaiʻi. There’s rum made from sugarcane windbreaks, chickens boosting tree yields, and farmers learning to transition from field crops to multistory agroforestry. If you’ve ever wondered what it really takes to bring heritage staple crop back online — not just agriculturally, but economically, socially, and culturally — this episode is for you.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Today’s guest is Austin Unruh of Trees For Graziers, who is a silvopasture and agroforestry practitioner who I’ve known for about seven years now. He does phenomenal work planting trees for water quality and cattle shade, and shatters the tradeoff between the two. We talked tree species, planting techniques, and a whole lot more. Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Silvopasture is the intentional integration of trees, forage, and livestock, and Northern Argentina boasts over 200,000 acres of plantation silvopasture. If we’re going to make more silvopasture happen in the United States, it’s good to learn from similar climates, even if they’re in the Southern Hemisphere.In this episode, we talk to Luis Colcombet, who is a silvopasture veteran, and an agroforestry agronomist and scientist with INTA in Argentina. He’s been working in silvopasture for decades, with pine, eucalyptus, poplar, and more.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Argentina is full of agroforestry. From 200,000 acres of silvopasture across the northeast, to thousands of miles of windbreaks in Patagonia, to shade-grown yerba mate, trees on farms just make sense. It's incredibly helpful to compare agroforestry systems across different climates and different economies, and we can learn a great deal about our own climate and agroforestry through the lens and the experience of another unique but similar region.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Here we have our first Australian on the Plant The Trees Podcast.I first met Darren Doherty at a Keyline agroforestry course in Iowa City in 2014. Back then we sometimes called it permaculture, but you could say that sphere was starving for pragmatism. How could we add financial realism to a socially-inclined ecological agriculture?  There are so many things we can do on a landscape, but where do we start? And what goals and ends do we have? The Regrarians platform gives extremely thorough, but flexible guidelines for how to plan landscapes for regenerative agriculture. It’s a must-have in the toolkit if you’re going to make agroforestry happen.In 2014, At 23 years old and fresh out of an undergraduate degree in International Business, I was looking for a way to finance trees and to link investment capital with regenerative agriculture. And 11 years later, we’re making it happen. Darren is an advisor to Propagate. We have a great relationship, and I’m thoroughly enthused to have him on the Plant The Trees Podcast.Join us as we peruse Australia’s climates, holistic management, and The Regrarians Platform.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

When we try to transform the world’s distressed or abandoned farmland, we'll come across a massive leverage point. That can be a new technology. Or it can be a tree species. Today we’re going to the country of Hungary to focus on a very unique tree. It grows fast, fixes nitrogen, and produces timber that rivals tropical hardwoods in strength and durability. In Hungary, it’s a species that’s woven into songs, poetry, and everyday life — but in parts of Europe and even its native landscape, it’s been labeled “invasive.” But invasive to when and to what conditions? Today, we meet the people who’ve spent decades unlocking the potential of Robinia pseudoacacia. Silvanus Forestry has bred Black locust that grow straighter, faster, and thrives in places many farmers have dismissed or ignored. From honey to industrial lumber, from the Hungarian plains to the New York, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, this is the story of how one tree species has shaped landscapes, livelihoods, and rural economies. Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

I’ve traveled to Hungary on five separate occasions, to learn more about black locust silviculture. Hungary grows 1 million acres of locust dominant forest and forest plantations, so it’s the right place for Robinia immersion.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

The key to healthier livestock, resilient farms, and strong rural economies is found where trees and livestock intersect.Today’s guest has spent over 30 year making the case, in real life, that silvopasture isn’t just a concept you see in a textbook — and that it’s a relevant part of a multifaceted agricultural economy. From planting black walnut and black locust on a New York hayfield in the 1980s, to regenerating degraded rangelands in Argentina into thriving silvopastures that feed cattle and communities, Brett has learned what it takes to make trees and grazing work, and he is here to tell you all about it.From “bale bombs” that turn thickets into productive biomass and dry matter, to the different ways to create silvopasture, we’re about to understand why the best silvopasture plans keeping pay off. We’ll hear about 40 years of trials, tribulations, wins — and why playing the long game is so durable.This is a conversation with a calm and decisive visionary. It’s about patience, and the art and practice of growing trees, grass, and livestock all on the same farm. Please welcome Brett Chedzoy.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, is extremely unique. It’s the only fast-growing rot-resistant hardwood, native to the eastern United States. In this episode we’ll dive into how it grows, what the wood is used for, and the culture surrounding this phenomenal tree.Have questions about planting trees on your land? Visit propagateag.com/contact-us to talk to someone from our team!

Welcome to the Plant The Trees podcast! You may have heard that money doesn't grow on trees, but it totally does through a practice called agroforestry. In this podcast, we'll explore the ins-and-out and benefits of agroforestry, how people are putting it into practice around the world, and how you can do it on your own land.