Photo Credit

Mitchel Davidovitz

Heart Culture Farm’s fruit and nut orchard is bordered to the north by a diverse native plant hedgerow and to the east and west by living fence hedgerows planted with willow.

Kara Huntermoon is one of the principal stewards of Heart Culture Farm, a 33-acre community farm in the Long Tom Watershed in Eugene, Oregon. Home to 25 people, the farm’s primary goal is to provide food for its residents. Kara, with the help of many community members and volunteers, is successfully growing about half of the community’s food, despite resource limitations and climate challenges. She estimates that, once the trees mature, the farm will be able to produce as much as 90 percent of the food required for 25 residents. The farm integrates a diverse array of production systems, including a fruit and nut orchard, a vegetable production system, sheep, goats, and poultry. To enhance resilience and productivity, Kara has implemented agroforestry practices like planting hedgerows. She designed these hedgerows in a specific way to help the farm adapt to challenges such as high wind, limited rainfall at certain times of the year, excess rainfall at other times of the year, and pest pressure.   

The Natural Resources Conservation Service defines hedgerows as dense perennial vegetation in a linear design to achieve a conservation purpose, often related to providing habitat. The terms “windbreaks” and “hedgerows” are sometimes used interchangeably if designed to have overlapping purposes. Hedgerows are often structurally like windbreaks and satisfy many of the same goals depending on the design. At Heart Culture Farm, hedgerows do the following:

• Slow wind
• Prevent erosion
• Attract beneficial natural enemies for improved integrated pest management
• Fence in animals
• Provide fodder to livestock and food for the community 

“When designing, we’re thinking about how many different types of yields we can get from this landscape,” explains Kara. Beyond food production, Kara considers other kinds of “yields,” such as fencing, wind protection, livestock forage, medicinal plants, building materials, wildlife habitat, nitrogen fixation, and pest control. “I need species that support pollinators, fix nitrogen, accumulate minerals, and bring beauty to the landscape,” Kara explains. “At the same time, I’m thinking about how to add shade, fodder, and wind protection. So, there’s a multiple-functions theme here when we’re designing.” Heart Culture Farm’s hedgerows are helping the farm adapt to multiple challenges to support both climate resilience and community self-sufficiency while producing other valuable benefits. 

Challenges and adaptation strategies

High winds

Photo Credit

Mitchel Davidovitz

A hedgerow to the north of Heart Culture Farm’s diversified fruit and nut orchard protects young trees from wind damage.

To protect the farm’s diversified fruit and nut orchard from strong summer winds, Kara established a hedgerow designed to reduce wind speed and prevent moisture loss. “Part of the reason I planted a hedgerow here is because in the summer, we’ve got these really hot, punishing winds that come across,” says Kara.  Before the hedgerow was planted, Kara says that even irrigated fruit tree saplings struggled to survive, turning brown on the wind-exposed side. “It’s really difficult to get young fruit trees to establish in that situation.” says Kara. To address this challenge, Kara planted a hedgerow to the north of the orchard in an east to west orientation, perpendicular to the prevailing dry summer winds that come from the north. She designed the hedgerow to be four rows wide, with one row of tall trees and three rows of shorter trees and shrubs. Each row is spaced 2 feet apart to achieve around 60 percent density, which is an effective density for slowing wind. After establishing the hedgerow, Kara observed a significant reduction in wind speed, and her young orchard trees no longer exhibited moisture stress.

Pest pressure

Heart Culture Farm produces an abundance of vegetable, fruit, and nut crops for the community, and like any farm, they deal with pest pressure. Crops are grown near people’s homes, so spraying conventional pesticides is not an option. Instead, Kara relies on native plant hedgerows to attract beneficial insects and natural enemy predators that help keep pests in check. By selecting native species that flower at different times of the year, Kara ensures a continuous supply of pollen and nectar for beneficial insects. She planted a diverse mix of native trees and shrubs with the goal of supporting natural enemies for improved pest control. She planted black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), Scouler’s willow (Salix scouleriana), Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana), Oregon ash (Fraxinus latifolia), Oregon crab apple (Malus fusca), red alder (Alnus rubra), and redosier dogwood (Cornus sericea). Since establishing the hedgerows, she has observed increases in the number of butterflies, parasitoids, and birds in the hedgerows, many of which contribute to pest management on the farm. 

Heavy winter rainfall

Heavy winter rainfall is common in Eugene, Oregon. The region receives around 46 inches of rain per year with much of the rain falling from November to February. This concentration of rainfall leads to standing water in several parts of the farm during winter, causing soil saturation, waterlogging, runoff, and erosion, all of which impact production. Heavy rain may prove even more challenging in the coming years. Climate models project that winter precipitation in Eugene, Oregon may increase 5.7 to 12.3 percent by the end of the century, with rainfall intensity on wet days also expected to rise.

Photo Credit

Mitchel Davidovitz

Hedgerow trees and shrubs are planted into a raised berm next to a swale to prevent “wet feet” during periods of extreme precipitation.

Given Eugene’s seasonal shifts between wet winters and dry summers, it was important for Kara to choose hedgerow species that can thrive in both conditions. In general, many native Oregon species are well adapted to fluctuating moisture levels. This includes the ability to withstand "wet feet” during prolonged periods of saturation. For this reason, Kara prioritizes native species when designing hedgerows. “Any time you have the chance to fulfill your needs with a native plant, it’s better to choose natives,” she explains.

Another way that Kara deals with heavy winter rainfall is by creating extensive “earthworks” (embankments made of earth) in and around hedgerow plantings. In parallel lines, she dug a row of one-foot-deep swales for water to flow into, and next to it she piled up one-foot-high berms of dry soil. She then planted hedgerow trees and shrubs into the raised berms. Berms divert excess water away from tree roots, allowing tree roots to stay drier in the winter than they would otherwise. Kara says this has greatly increased the survival rate of the trees. Tree roots in turn help stabilize the soil, preventing erosion. During the rainy season, swales act as natural reservoirs, allowing water to slowly infiltrate the soil, which improves moisture retention for drier months.

Limited summer rainfall

One of the key functions of the hedgerows at Heart Culture Farm is to provide supplementary food to livestock during periods of limited rainfall. Summer rainfall in Eugene is minimal, with an average of 3.5 inches from June 1 to October 1. By August and September, most of the farm’s pasture grasses have dried up from a lack of rain, leaving the farm’s sheep and goats with little grass to eat. Climate projections suggest that this challenge may intensify in the coming years. Summer precipitation is projected to decrease by between 9.8 and 17.2 percent in Eugene, even though winter precipitation and total annual precipitation are projected to increase.

Photo Credit

Mitchel Davidovitz

During periods of limited rainfall when grass has dried up, Kara prunes trees and shrubs and feeds the fodder to livestock. 

To deal with this challenge, Kara planted hedgerows with tree and shrub species that can be used as supplemental livestock forage. “Unless you irrigate the grass, it’s done being available for food in August, but the trees still have green leaves. So that increases the on-farm food sources for the sheep and the goats." In the hedgerow to the north of the fruit and nut orchard, Kara planted fodder trees and shrubs like alder (Alnus spp.), black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia),linden (Tilia spp.), cottonwood (Populus spp.), honey-locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), mulberry (Morus spp.), and willow (Salix spp.). These plants are high in protein and provide an excellent source of nutrition to livestock when grass is not available. Kara also selected fodder plants for their ability to provide other functions to the farm. For example, Kara chose cottonwood not only for its nutrient-dense leaves, but also for its ability to grow tall quickly, which has helped protect the orchard from wind. Black locust was chosen for its high protein content and its ability to fix nitrogen, enriching the soil. Mulberries were selected because their protein- and mineral-rich leaves provide nutrition to livestock, while berries provide a source of food to the community. 

Photo Credit

Mitchel Davidovitz

A living fence hedgerow made of willows woven together using a method called “pleaching.”

On the eastern and western edges of the fruit and nut orchard, Kara planted hedgerows that are comprised entirely of “Polish Purple” basket willow (Salix purpurea), woven tightly together to form a living fence. This willow hedgerow provides a source of nutrition to livestock during periods of limited rainfall. It also slows wind and is used to contain some of the farm’s animals, including sheep, ducks, and geese. To construct the living fence, Kara wove together willow stems using a method called “pleaching,” which involves planting long strands of willow stakes diagonally eight inches apart, crossing them in a diamond pattern, and tying them together. Once tied, the willows fuse together to form what functions as a connected, living organism in the shape of a fence. “A living willow fence can provide a lot of the same habitat benefits that you would expect from a hedgerow, but it’s just tighter and more controlled, and it forms a denser boundary in your system,” explains Kara. While these fences can be effective at containing livestock once they mature, Kara notes that it does take many years for them to grow tall and strong enough to withstand animal impacts, and they are not recommended for containing larger livestock, like cattle.

Using livestock to manage the land 

One of Kara’s guiding philosophies is to provide the farm with what it needs while relying as little as possible on inputs sourced from outside of the farm. One way she achieves this is by integrating livestock into the farm in strategic ways to help with management tasks, including weed control, pest management, and fertilization. Sheep are rotated through the orchard to mow cover crops, while chickens and ducks are used to control orchard pests, like snails and slugs. Additionally, livestock contribute valuable manure, enhancing soil fertility. 

Managing and protecting animals is a labor of its own, however. To prevent overgrazing and excess nutrient deposition, Kara divides the farm into 12 different paddocks and rotates animals through at regular intervals. The farm’s living willow fences help contain livestock on one side of the property, but mobile electric fencing is needed elsewhere. Moving this fencing and rotating animals is labor intensive, but it is a vital part of using livestock in a beneficial way. 

Kara notes that protecting newly planted trees and shrubs from livestock is critical to prevent trampling, debarking, and defoliation. She uses mobile fencing to exclude livestock completely from young trees and shrubs, but she notes that there are still benefits to allowing animals to graze nearby. “Even though I'm fencing the animals away from the trunks of the younger trees, the roots extend out past the trunks,” explains Kara. “Because livestock are still able to perform weed control and defecate on areas adjacent to trees, the benefits remain.” Kara has observed that hedgerow plants and adjacent cover crops grow earlier, greener, and taller since incorporating animals 5 years ago. “I can visually see the difference between areas where I have run the animals and where I have not yet started running the animals,” she says.