Sign up for email updates: http://bit.ly/1W2weJM AgroforestryVOLUME 25 ISSUE 3 GIS and Remote Pacific Islands Sensing for Kansas Multipurpose pg.4 Public Outreach pg.6 Windbreaks NAC Director's Corner A commentary on the status of agroforestry by Susan Stein, NAC Director Interest in windbreak assessment, Plan workshop. Representatives of local, state, federal, renovation and establishment is on the and non-profit organizations met in Manhattan, Kansas rise – and for good reason. When to lay the foundation for the advancement of windbreak designed properly, windbreaks can buffer research, outreach, and assistance to support and enhance crops from extreme weather and maintain landowner interest in windbreak renovation, maintenance or increase crop yields. They can also keep and establishment. Workshop participants focused on four soil on the ground, enhance pollinator habitat, produce special areas: training for natural resource professionals; outreach forest products and provide other sustainable agriculture and education for landowners/producers; programs and benefits. But wait, there’s more – when planted as living snow policies to support windbreaks; and critical research. fences, windbreaks improve highway safety, and, when planted around farmsteads, they reduce energy costs. The high level of energy among participants at the Manhattan workshop, and the stories presented in this newsletter, are In order to maximize the ability of farmers, ranchers and examples of a renewed recognition that, in the right place communities to access windbreak information and assistance, and at the right time, windbreaks can continue to fill an a team of forestry and agriculture professionals from across important niche in America’s sustainable agriculture tool kit. the Great Plains held a Great Plains Windbreak Action Windbreaks in the Webinar Library any organizations use webinars to provide training, share information, and promote agroforestry. Because agroforestry is M interdisciplinary, these are archived in many different places. The NAC website contains a webinar library with links to archived webinars hosted by its partners. The library has been updated to contain over 75 recorded webinars covering many agroforestry practices and has filtering and sorting capabilities to help users access the content in which they are most interested. Please contact Kate MacFarland at [email protected] for more information. Selected windbreak webinars: Multipurpose Buffers for Poultry Farms and Pollinator-friendly Multi-functional Windbreak Design, Production, by Paul Patterson (2017), hosted by the by Mark Wonneck (2012), hosted by NAC Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Agroforestry Working Group Snow Control Tools, by Dan Gullickson and David Windbreak Economics by Larry D. Godsey (2012), Smith (2015), hosted by the University of Minnesota hosted by NAC Shelterbelts, Beef Producers & Behaviors: United States National Windbreak Perspective, by Investigating an Alternative Approach Using Social Bruce Wight (2012), hosted by NAC Marketing, by Ryan Canart, Ian Shanghvi, William Ashton, and Blair English (2012), hosted by NAC 2 Inside Agroforestry ] Volume 25, Issue 3 New Frontiers in Tree Inventory and Monitoring for the Central United States Todd Kellerman, National Agroforestry Center Dacia Meneguzzo, Northern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service Greg Liknes, Northern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service n response to the Central U.S. over the past generally summarized to a function is assigned to each devastating dust storms 60 years have provided larger scale, such as a county, contiguous patch of tree of the mid-1930s, more some information about the and may only provide useful cover with an emphasis Ithan 30,000 shelterbelts were windbreak resource. However, information pertaining to larger on identifying windbreaks planted, covering over 18,000 those surveys provide little detail tracts of wooded land. The and riparian corridors. miles across the Central U.S. about the spatial arrangement Forest Inventory and Analysis through the Prairie States of trees on the landscape. In (FIA) program of the U.S. When data from the two phases Forestry Project/Shelterbelt addition, datasets providing Forest Service, which inventories are combined, the resulting Program (1935-1942). To detailed spatial tree cover all forest lands across all information will meet the date, this remains one of the information on the Great Plains ownerships, defines forest land needs of the natural resource largest environmental projects are severely lacking. Satellite- as having at least 10% live-tree agencies in the Great Plains and in U.S. history. The last based land cover products are canopy cover, and is at least 1.0- support the USDA Agroforestry official survey of the original often collected at a spatial acre in size and 120 feet wide. Strategic Framework. shelterbelts planted during this resolution too coarse (e.g. 30 As a result, FIA inventories Furthermore, this image-based program was conducted in meters or roughly the size of the only include ‘forested’ areas, inventory of tree resources will 1954, but the present state of infield on a baseball diamond) which may exclude as much as be consistent across the region, windbreaks in the Great Plains to accurately depict small areas 70% of the tree resource in the facilitating comparisons between region is largely unknown. of tree cover, such as single Great Plains region according states and counties. Because tree canopies or linear features to photo-interpreted estimates. new imagery is collected every Federal ground surveys of such as windbreaks. Surveys few years under the National sample locations across the based on sample locations are In an effort to fill the above- Agriculture Imagery Program mentioned data gap, FIA and (NAIP), changes to the resource the National Agroforestry can be monitored over time. Center (NAC) have formed a This project will targeted task team to develop In a similar fashion to what methods for efficient mapping of the Kansas Forest Service did describe the extent, trees outside forests (TOF) and in 2008 (see article on page 4), for identifying and quantifying the geospatial datasets resulting location and their ecosystem functions in from this project can be used agricultural landscapes. This to identify priority areas for mission is currently being conservation tree plantings and function for nearly carried out in two phases, across increase the implementation of four states: North Dakota, windbreak renovation practices. 12 million acres South Dakota, Nebraska and When this effort is fully Kansas. In Phase 1, a baseline implemented, about 1 trillion of tree cover, of TOF is created by mapping pixels over more than 300,000 tree cover from high-resolution square miles in North Dakota, 5 million acres aerial photography resulting South Dakota, Nebraska, and in geospatial data that provide Kansas will have been mapped. of which would be information about the area and Data will describe the extent, location of tree cover. Using location and function for nearly considered trees that baseline information, tree 12 million acres of tree cover, 5 cover can then be monitored million acres of which would be outside forests. over time by repeated mapping. considered trees outside forests. In Phase II, an ecosystem Inside Agroforestry ] Volume 25, Issue 3 3 GIS and Remote Sensing for Kansas Windbreaks for Public Outreach Bob Atchison, Kansas Forest Service, Kansas State University Darci Paull, Kansas Forest Service, Kansas State University dentifying priority landscapes for addressing natural estimated using a normalized difference vegetation index, resource concerns requires timely, accurate data. Such NDVI, which measures live-green vegetation. When data can also help organizations make efficient use of combined with ground truth sampling (comparing the Ilimited resources to more effectively engage landowners. accuracy of remote sensing with on-the-ground inventory) Unfortunately when it comes to windbreaks and other windbreaks are placed into one of three condition agroforestry practices, the data has often been missing. classes (good, fair or poor). The criteria used to assign The U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station condition classes is the same criteria used by NRCS (NRS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program Forestry Technical Note KS-11. Windbreaks in fair to has done a great job tracking the size and condition of poor condition were identified as a “resource concern” Kansas forestlands. However, agroforestry practices and are eligible for windbreak renovation through such as windbreaks and riparian forest buffers do not EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program). generally meet baseline definitions of “forestland” and are not inventoried. For this reason, the condition and Next the Kansas Forest Service identified the owners size of windbreaks has not been adequately measured. of windbreaks in poor or fair condition, using data on Consequently, the land ownership and parcel data acquired from County common perception of Appraisers’ offices. Working through trusted County a decline in windbreaks Conservation Districts, the Kansas Forest Service ...the condition throughout the Great then mailed letters to landowners with windbreaks Plains is based on anecdotal in fair or poor condition, inviting them to consider and size of evidence or limited and renovating their windbreaks through EQIP. local inventories. The most recent outreach efforts focused on Wallace, windbreaks To