Hi,
The subject text almost says it all. A coppiced tree stump suitable for animal fodder (could be Fraxinus for example but many other good candidates could be used, also depending on animal species) sends up fresh shoots in the spring, then you very timely let your animals graze it in summer at some point and then let the stump regrow and stockpile the shoots and leaves (alive still attached to the stump) for autumn/winter grazing. The reason why I thought about grazing/cutting the stump once in the summer, before stockpiling (as opposed to stockpiling from the first shoots in spring until winter) is that maybe the tree will have fresher/greener leaves for longer this way before they start to get yellow/brown (see below for evidence for this). So it is the same approach like stockpiled grasses, where you time your grazing for regrowth late
enough in the year so that the grasses can grow and hold their nutrition longer in the autumn/winter.
I came to think of this because I have been cutting back a maple tree stump in my
yard multiple times this year and multiple times last year and it keeps regrowing new shoots with incredible vigour, then I could not help to think that 'if I just had a few sheep or goats then they would happily have grazed down the new shoots mutiple times per year for delicious food'.
Not only that but now we are one day away from october and this stump now sits with very lush green leaves while other maples on my property have leaves going brown/yellow.... And that's what gave me the idea, waow, now this maple tree stump does not follow the season like the other
trees, because it was cut in the summer and then it maintains fresh green leaves here in the autumn... interesting so how long can these leaves stay green? That I will try to find out by observation.
Then I imagine a more managed silvopasture system, with stockpiled tall fescue and other good cool season grasses and then maybe lines or dots of coppiced tree stumps with stockpiled branches with green leaves waiting to be devoured by grazing animals during autumn and hopefully some of winter.
The 2 images above show the difference between the normal mature maple tree with leaves going yellow/brown and the maple stump and its totally green leaves at this same time of the year.
How could this work or why could this never work?
I my self can imagine
deer and elk making it problematic, which may be one of the reasons why people mostly used pollarding for cutting tree
hay at a height of 2-3 meters, above browsing animals, but of
course maybe no tree species can be manipulated to hold its leaf-nutrition well into winter months like some cold season grasses can.
I love the concept of letting animals harvest their
feed them selves and extending winter grazing as much as possible with stockpiled grasses or other crops like forage turnips (maybe broadcast sown in the area of a recently harvested crop in late summer) and cereal rye
should be very good according to some studies.
The more I try to research this subject I get the impression that it a bit more complicated than I first thought (isn't it always like that, with all subjects?)... For example you can't just stockpile anything that grows, some plant species will have their nutrition deteriorate rapidly in the face of cold and frosts, while some cool season grasses may improve their nutrition for the animals when subjected to cold for a certain amount of time, but no grass will have great nutrition for your animals absolutely all months of winter even if you masterly manage the pasture and stockpile to the best of abilities if you live in very cold regions of the world. So as far as I can understand it will never be possible to kick the hay habit 100 % in colder climates, but I am still very happy with reducing the need for hay production with say 50 % or more, that would be fabulous still!
Now all this grass is great of course but historically sheep,
cattle, goats and other animals really also ate a lot of forest browse and people have cut tree hay for hundreds if not thousands of years and modern studies also show many advantages and quality nutrition from specific tree species pollarded for winter hay for animals. It was really a major part of the farm work in many places in Europe and especially in Scandinavia untill around a little after the industrial revolution and studies today show that it can be very good for the animals to be fed this tree fodder in many ways and for many reasons. Just like making hay with a scythe can be hard work, so was/is making tree hay very time consuming of course, so yea that is why I thought about this idea with stockpiled coppice regrowth.
Greetings and please let me know any good reasons why I should just stop wasting time on this crazy idea if it would never work.
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