 I'm with the Savannah Institute and I want to tell you about some projects we're doing with support from the from SARE and we have one project where we're studying the crop performance of agroforestry crops. So we're a non-profit that is focused on agroforestry which is a way of using trees for various purposes on farms and so we got support from SARE to study what are some best methods for establishing these trees, how do they perform, what's the impact on pollinators on and around the farm, and what are some common pests and pathogens that might affect these tree crops as they're being established. And this is one of the farms where we're doing that project, Vulcan Farm. And we're also working on another SARE supported project here at this farm and that is a project to study best methods of integrating livestock with those tree crops. Both of these projects have helped our organization to accomplish our mission of studying how agroforestry works on working farms and what the opportunities are for those farms as they're getting started with these diversified systems and also what are some of the common challenges that these farms face and how can we work together to share what we're learning to overcome those challenges. So we have a network of a number of farms throughout the upper Midwest and it's a subset with each of these projects of four farms where we're doing this focused research and that's going to benefit all the farms that we work with because the things that we learn will be valuable already are being valuable to farms throughout the region. So we're grateful to the support of SARE and we've got some really excellent farmers that we're working with on this too and so really excited to see what we continue to learn as these projects go forward. My name is Kevin Wolz. I'm a farmer here in Champaign Urbana, Illinois and we have an agroforestry farm here where we're doing some civil pasture grazing sheep in between rows of trees. We have some chestnut trees here and one of the big problems with establishing trees into an existing pasture is that sometimes the livestock like to eat the trees or knock over the trees or lay on the trees and so we wrote a SARE partnership grant to evaluate several different kinds of tree protection for trees when they're at this early stage of establishment which is critical for them to get good growth early on and also to keep the sheep in here because those are the moneymakers early on because these trees aren't producing anything yet. So we've tried several different tree protection techniques. We have tree tubes here of several different heights. We have a four foot tube here and this tree over here has a five foot tube so that the tree tubes are really nice and sturdy, keeps the sheep out really well so far but it does kind of confine the tree a little bit more, maybe slowing down growth a little bit, maybe some disease issues but again the trees are at least alive and the sheep haven't touched them at all. Another treatment we have are these arbor shields, these big really sturdy spiked cages which are maybe a little bit overkill for sheep but they really keep everything out but because the cages are a little bit larger we can't get in as easily to weed right around the tree so the trees are oftentimes a little bit more stressed due to weed competition and also we're having issues with the trees rubbing in the wind on to this metal portion on the top. The plastic from the tree tubes doesn't have that effect because it's softer so that can be really damaging to the trees so we're trying to experiment with some ways to hold the trees straighter and steadier so they don't have that negative effect. The last treatment we're working with for these chestnut trees is kind of bare bones treatment just a really short tree tube here just to keep the rabbits from girdling the trees but basically the sheep have full access to the trees, deer have full access to the trees and you can see that these trees are generally a little bit shorter they do get defoliated a little bit and maybe get rubbed on and browsed a little bit more so these trees are a little bit behind in growth but then again for protection that is the cheapest option and easiest to install so at the end of the grant when we kind of run the full scenario in terms of cost labor from the farmer and efficacy of the protection we'll be comparing all these treatments to see really which one works best in certain contexts. My name is Kathy Capel we are on my farm near Sydney Illinois and I'm partnering with the Savannah Institute on two grants with SARE. The first one is establishing plants which I'm not much of a plant person so the guys at Savannah Institute have done most of that. I think my main participation in this was my willingness to lease 10 acres to them in order to improve the soil and the fertility on this land. It's timber soil which is a less productive soil in this part of the Midwest and corn soybean rotation doesn't seem like the best use of this type of soil. The idea of perennial crops just really appealed to me and especially perennial productive crops. The second grant has to do with establishing the plants as part of an agroforestry practice that includes livestock and I've raised sheep for several years on the farm and it's given me an opportunity to expand the pasture that I have available to my sheep and also to just increase some of the diversity on the farm and that I've you know we are also finding out what the sheep eat what they don't eat and how they affect the diversity of what's here.