The Center for Agroforestry

06/02/2026

06/02/2026

In April, the Center for Agroforestry received two ‘new to us’ Almaco plot combines! Lent by Missouri Foundation Seed, the combines will expand our capacity to explore grain crop integration within agroforestry systems and support investigations into alley cropping arrangements. Small grains will serve as our initial focus alongside a longer-term interest in a variety of row crops.

Pictured elsewhere on the research farm in early spring: Our winter wheat / UMCA® PQK chestnut alley crop matures and elderberries woke up to freshly mulched orchards. Data was collected in chestnut breeding blocks to look for late leafing offspring, a signifier of less susceptibility to cold damage from late frosts.

05/31/2026

That’s a wrap for the 2026 Agroforestry Academy! The final day included a tour of Green Pastures Farm, a regenerative grazing and silvopasture operation, and our wrap up lunch and reflection on Mizzou campus. Each Academy trainee is working on finishing up an agroforestry design for their capstone project. We can’t wait to see these plans come to life! Thanks to all who participated and facilitated this week!

05/30/2026

Thanks to all our guides and trainees for a great day three of our in-person Agroforestry Training Academy! We started the day at Rusted Plowshare Farm with tours of their silvopasture overpass tree protection system currently outfitted for pigs and sheep. Then we headed to Cedar Hill Farms for a tour of their 15+ year old chestnut orchards and accompanying facility for cleaning, sorting and packing. We closed out the day at the Missouri River Center, where we got a glimpse of the big muddy and walked among a young multifunctional riparian buffer. From a distance, we saw their bottomland alley cropping sites with pecan and black walnut, too!

05/29/2026

Day two of the Agroforestry Academy is in the books! Trainees visited the MU Horticulture and Agroforestry Research Farm to learn about the Center’s nearly 30yo research programs spanning tree crop breeding, horticulture, and more. Our Technical Assistance Provider led a stropharia inoculation demo, and then we headed to , a diversified small farm integrating fruit trees and shrubs among their annual vegetables with perennial hedges for cut flower production, and intentional stewardship of their forest understory for ecological health alongside cultivation of culinary species. The day ended at winery with dinner by , elderberry wine tastings, and a beautiful sunset among the early-blooming elderflowers.

05/27/2026

Yesterday marked the first day of the in-person field days for our Agroforestry Training Academy! We kicked off the week with dinner at the schoolhouse from followed by a tour of CCUA’s food forest, a public park here in Columbia filled with a diverse multi-strata arrangement of fruit and nut trees, berries, medicinal and culinary herbs, fungi, walking paths, and local art!

05/22/2026

Registration is open for the Grape and Wine Field Day on Friday, July 17 from 1 - 6 pm at the Mizzou Southwest Research Extension and Education Center in Mt Vernon, MO. With topics ranging from nematodes to grapevine diseases, muscadine breeding to irrigation innovations, this workshop will equip growers and industry stakeholders with tools for success. The workshop will end with a tasting of Missouri and Arkansas wines. Registration is free! https://extension.missouri.edu/events/viticulture-field-day

05/20/2026

We’re working to develop American elderberry cultivars so farmers can have more opportunities to diversify income streams, address conservation goals, and maximize farm gate revenues. But what do genetics and breeding activities look like from day-to-day in the field? This month, Research Specialist Liz Prenger is tracking elderberry inflorescence, the development of flowers, to better understand how long it takes for elderflower umbels to develop and begin to shed pollen. We’ll use this data to develop evidence-based cultivar pairing recommendations for orchard success.

05/19/2026

In mid-April, farmers, forest stewards, botanists, herbalists, teachers and researchers gathered at the MU Land of the Osages Research Farm in the Osage/Gasconade hills ecoregion to learn about forest farming in the Ozarks. The workshop is part of a growing effort to support forest farming in our region through the Midwest Forest Farming Coalition. The Coalition has published a free Missouri Forest Farming Handbook, established a planting stock access program, and will continue hosting events catered to forest farmers and foresters across the Midwest.

Luckily for everyone at the workshop, the forecasted rains held off, the poison ivy was yet to leaf out, and down in the sweet duff of a moderately steep Ozark forest, young green goldenseal plumes and pungent, fleshy ramp leaves were making their distinguished appearance as part of the educational programming.

Read more about the workshop and the Coalition's broader work: https://centerforagroforestry.org/growing-a-suite-of-resources-for-midwest-forest-farmers/

05/15/2026

We trial a lot of different methods for protecting trees in our research orchards. Sometimes, it comes down to what we have on hand. Other times, specific research objectives require specific techniques. We caught Research Specialist Matthew Ashby in the field last week working to keep a new planting of chestnut trees safe from curious deer. What research do you want to see done on tree protection? What works on your farm?