Sean Klomparens

I emailed Martin Crawford to ask him this exact question about chestnuts and I got this response:

"There are many variables involved and nobody has the done the research so any answer is half guesswork. Main variable is how long the coppicing cycle is. If the chestnuts were coppiced on a 15 year cycle you’d get perhaps 70-80% of crop of an uncoppiced tree. Shorter cycles would give less. Two trees coppiced at 10 years might give about the same as one large tree."

He was referring to coppicing chestnuts.

I do know that with Hazelnuts in OR they do a strategy where they double density plant them (9' spacing) and then after 8-12 years they remove every other for the standard 18' spacing. So they just skip coppicing in general because a large tree produces so much more than a small tree (more photosynthesis)

J.D. Ray wrote:
I've read elsewhere on this forum that pigs can be raised sustainably at a density of about 10 per acre. If a sow produces 20 feeders per year in a farrow-to-finish operation, the finished hogs have a butcher weight of 160 pounds, and the hanging, pasture-fed, organically raised hogs are sold for $2.00 per pound, then an income of around $6000/yr/sow can be had if all the food and labor is provided by the farm. So, if the density figure is correct, then one sow with two acres can provide an income of $6000. If a direct scale can be used, then a 20 acre farm could provide an income of $60,000 annually.
JD

If you're selling polyculture fed hogs for 2 bucks a pound, you're vastly underestimating how much you can get for that quality meat. Try doubling, tripling, or quadrupling that. I currently pay 6.50 a pound for bacon and about 4 bucks a pound for pork steaks.