Haase Perennial Acre - USA

Generations of family farming are changing to address the diminishing soil resource and the inevitability of extreme weather changes. Perennial crop systems are being developed to rival the harvest and revenue of conventional commodity crops. Southwoods was hired to design a perennial crop system for research and comparison on the Haase farm in Blue Earth, Minnesota. A blend of ecological design and conventional practices to bring the best of forest ecology to the efficiency of commodity crops.

Though the plants are supported in polycultures, the consistency and quality must be predictable for harvest planning and commodity buyers. This design is placed in a long one-acre strip with access for tractors and human harvesting. A large windbreak is White Oak for acorn-finished pork is the long term overstory with fruiting shrubs and perennial crops filling the understory. Monitoring and record-keeping is important to this test field.