Learn about our Agroforestry Research and Demonstration Site

We’re happy to share news about the UMaine Agroecology Lab’s Agroforestry Research and Demonstration Site. Supported by the USDA Northeast Climate Hub, the project is led by Dr. Rachel Schattman and graduate student Alaina Ring.

Map of UMaine’s Agroecology Lab’s Agroforestry Research and Demonstration Site

The 1.2 acre site, located at the Wyman's Wild Blueberry Research and Innovation Center, demonstrates an alley cropping agroforestry system. The site includes three rows of bush cherries (Prunus fruticosa x cerasus), two rows of elderberries (Sambucus nigra + ssp canadensis), and two rows of hybrid hazelnuts (Corylus avellana x comuta x americana) alternating with 24’ alleys that will be used for annual crops. The site will provide a space for research, education, and a grower-oriented workshop series.

According to the USDA, agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits. It contributes to climate change mitigation in three ways: (1) Sequestering carbon in biomass and soils, (2) improving soil health, and (3) increasing resilience to extreme weather events such as drought or flooding.

According to Ring, there are not many demonstration areas for agroforestry in the Northeast. This new site will be especially useful for research and education, due to its location on a University of Maine Agriculture and Forestry Experiments Station (MAFES) research farm. The project is a collaboration between the UMaine Agroecology Lab, the USDA Northeast Climate Hub, and the USDA National Agroforestry Center (NAC). 

“Having more resources where people can go and actually see what agroforestry looks like is really important if we want to scale up agroforestry and make it more accessible to growers. We have the wiggle room to make mistakes, try things, and create budgets and economic analyses, which are all important resources to help farmers adopt these practices.”

— Alaina Ring

The team recently finished planting on the site. Educational signs at the site will be useful tools for all visitors to learn about these practices and how to implement them on their own.

New article: Effects of irrigation scheduling approaches on soil moisture and vegetable production in the Northeastern U.S.A.

A multi-year collaboration between the University of Maine Agroecology Lab and University of Vermont Extension has led to a new publication titled “Effects of irrigation scheduling approaches on soil moisture and vegetable production in the Northeastern U.S.A.”, published in Agricultural Water Managment. The research reported upon in this manuscript includes a survey, several focus groups, and three years of field trials in two states. The goal of the research was to better understand when and how diversified vegetable producers in the Northeast can use different soil-water assessment approaches to “dial in” irrigation practices.

In brief, we compared several standard practices that farmers often use to schedule irrigation in diversified vegetable production: feeling the soil, using soil-water assessment technologies (granular matrix sensors and associated software), and timers. First we asked farmers about their preferred approaches, and what questions they had regarding irrigation scheduling technology. We then compared these approaches to plots that received no irrigation (though did receive ambient rainfall). Specifically, we measured yield, crop quality, nitrate concentrations in subsurface leachate, and total water use.

Our primary findings are that soil moisture sensors, which have been cited as the gold standard in water use efficiency for several decades, did not lead to better crop outcomes. However, using these sensors led to consistently desirable soil-water conditions, compared to the variability observed in the other treatments. The sensors would likely reduce environmental degradation due to nitrate leaching in agricultural systems. Conservation programs that support farmer use of soil-water monitoring could expand use of this approach to improve environmental outcomes.

Farmers indicated that the cost of cloud-based monitoring systems were a barrier to adopting tensiometer and/or granular matrix sensors, thought hand-held readers were considered a reasonable alternative. Farmers would be willing to subscribe to cloud-based systems if doing so resulted in yield increases. For this reason, these systems may remain useful for farmers of larger-scales, which small scale operations may have difficulty justifying the expense. Supplemental funding for soil-water monitoring systems through conservation grants would likely lead to wider adoption.

This research was supported through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program under Subaward no. LNE19-391R, as well as through Hatch Project no. ME0- 1022424 through the Maine Agricultural & Forest Experiment Station. We are grateful for additional support from the USDA Northeast Climate Hub.

The full manuscript is open-access. From this project, our group also published two fact sheets on soil-water monitoring and different systems and prices.

Graphical abstract created with BioRender.com

UMaine researcher serves as expert witness at Congressional hearing on supporting farmers adapting for the future

Rachel Schattman’s testimony about how farmers can mitigate and plan for climate change comes just days after a federal report showed more than half of Maine is currently experiencing moderate drought conditions that may impact this year’s harvest of key crops like wild blueberries.

Washington, D.C. — A University of Maine researcher told a Congressional committee yesterday about successful efforts led by the state’s flagship to understand and support farmers to adopt sustainable practices that will make their small businesses and our nation’s food supply more resilient for the future. 

Rachel E. Schattman, an assistant professor of sustainable agriculture in the School of Food and Agriculture at UMaine, testified July 19 as an expert witness at a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment examining the role of farmers and ranchers in solving climate change and increasing food production.  

A former commercial farmer herself, Schattman conducts interdisciplinary research and provides technical assistance to help farms be more resilient in a changing climate while protecting natural resources.

She has studied farmers in the Northeast and Midwest to better understand what support they need to adopt environmentally friendly practices that protect natural resources and their bottom line. Informed by that research, last year she helped pilot a program with regional partners, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), that paired vegetable and small fruit growers and agricultural advisors to learn climate science and develop personalized farm adaptation plans and outreach materials to share with their peers.

 “Though there are many uncertainties associated with what the future holds, because of research that has already been conducted, we know enough right now to support farmers as they adapt to a changing climate, build resilience into their farms and anchor thriving U.S. agricultural industries that can provide essential rural jobs and feed our population and the world,” Schattman said in her prepared testimony. 

She urged Congress to support investment in sustainable agriculture and climate research and region-specific outreach like that happening at UMaine, and to consider incentivizing the transition to proven practices that enhance soil and water quality like nutrient management and rotating cover and cash crops to mitigate farmers’ risk.

“More and more often, farmers are taking note of drought, heat and shifts in seasonal temperatures, and all of these changes are leading these communities to realize that they cannot continue to farm in the same way as their predecessors,” Schattman explained, just days after a federal report showed more than half of Maine is currently experiencing moderate drought conditions.

She highlighted recent investment by Wyman’s, the largest retailer of wild blueberries in the United States, to establish the first-of-its-kind wild blueberry research and innovation center at UMaine to investigate the impact of increasing temperatures and changing precipitation on small fruit crop performance and health.

Schattman’s written testimony is available here and the full hearing can be viewed here. 

This is the second time in as many months that experts from Maine’s R1 research university have been invited to inform the work of Congress as expert hearing witnesses. In May, the university’s liaison to the forest products industry, Shane O’Neill, testified about workforce development and innovation in that sector at the invitation of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s Conservation and Forestry Subcommittee. 

“The University of Maine is a world-class, R1 research university where faculty and students work together to create new knowledge and innovations to solve our state’s and the world’s most pressing problems — including adapting to and mitigating climate change,” said President Joan Ferrini-Mundy, who is also vice chancellor for research and innovation for the University of Maine System. 

“UMaine researchers are called upon by policymakers from the State House to the U.S. Capitol and by communities and companies in between, and that is a testament to their terrific work and decades of public and private partnership and investment. We are proud that our university is such a vital public asset, and look forward to only increasing our impact on Maine and beyond in the years to come.”

Contact: Margaret Nagle, nagle@maine.edu

USDA awards $149,000 to climate change adaptation fellowship program

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NE-SARE) program has awarded $149,000 to the University of Maine School of Food and Agriculture. The award will support a yearlong fellowship program for agricultural advisers and farmers working in vegetable and small fruit industries to adapt to challenges related to climate change. 

The vegetable and small fruit growers module is one of four modules that make up the Climate Adaptation Fellowship (CAF) program, which also includes modules geared toward dairy producers, tree fruit producers and foresters. 

The project is led by Rachel Schattman, an assistant professor of sustainable agriculture and an associate with the Climate Change Institute at UMaine. Co-principal investigators on the award are Erin Lane of the USDA Northeast Climate Hub and Marjorie Kaplan of the Rutgers University Climate Institute.

Climate change will lead to many challenges for vegetable and small fruit growers in the northeastern United States in the near future, including extreme rainfall, floods, droughts, and increasing pest problems. 

For farmers to minimize risk to themselves and their businesses, adaptive management measures are necessary. Farmers must improve their knowledge of climate change adaptation practices relevant to their specific geographic settings and business models. These practices include growing crops better suited to new conditions, using different insurance, and exploring new business ownership structures and revenue sources, such as agrotourism or consulting.

“Farmers are already seeing the effects of climate change,” says Schattman. “In coming decades, it will become increasingly important that both commercial growers and those that advise them are equipped to assess and adapt to climate-related risks. Successful adaptation will be different for every farm, and this program will help participants take an individualized approach.”

Participants in the CAF program will enhance their knowledge of climate change, experiment with or evaluate adaptation management practices, and encourage other farmers to explore farm-specific climate change adaptation measures through a peer-to-peer curriculum. 

Thirty fellows will be selected to work in pairs to develop 15 individual, personalized farm adaptation plans, as well as outreach projects such as newsletters, blog posts, fact sheets, or presentations. Some fellows also will integrate information about climate change adaptation into new or ongoing programming. 

UMaine is collaborating with the USDA Northeast Climate Hub, Rutgers University, the University of Vermont, and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) on the program. The curriculum, completed in 2019, is the result of a multiyear collaboration between multiple land grant universities, USDA agencies, nonprofit organizations and land managers. This work is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under subaward number #ENE20-164-34268.

To apply to the Climate Adaptation Fellowship program or to find out more, visit the CAF website. 

This press release was written by Cleo Barker, cleo.barker@maine.edu

UPDATE: A webinar explaining the CAF application process has now been posted, as has a living FAQ page. FAQs will continue to be updated until the application due date (October 1, 2020).