Sowing a windbreak forest: Fall direct, spring stratified, or transplants?

Hello all,

I am getting excited to start a planted windbreak as I am noticing that the wind has a large dry-out factor on my land.  i have never done a food forest, much less a plantable windbreak before so I am looking for some advice.  I am hoping to start with 100-50 of wind break this year and then adjust and keep adding every year or so.  

One of my main questions is about getting the thing started... I can imagine three different strategies to get the process started:
1. Put a dense amount of seeds out in fall and let them stratify naturally. Best suited win and start growing.
2. Stratify the seeds through refrigeration, nicolating, etc. and then put them out at the very end of winter tt start growing when the time is right.
3. Setup a nursey and start seeds through method two and then plant the trees a year later.

Some of my constraints are:
I have very rocky soil. I feel like direct seeding will do better as the roots will naturally gravitate to the deeper soil pockets that I won't be able to see if I am transplanting.
Lots of deer.  I will have to put up some sort of semi -temp-permanent fencing to get the system established. However, I would like to remove the fencing eventually and still have it survive browsing.
Very hot and dry summers.  While I would prefer not to, I think I am going to have to some irrigation to get things off the ground, but I want to limit it as much as possible.

Some of the species I am considering (which is an every expanding list) are mostly nitrofixing natives that i am collecting seeds from by the road and in parks.
Black and Honey Locust
Mesquite
Redbud
Texas Mountain Laurel
Pecan
Goldenball Lead Tree (Leauceana)
Sumac
oak
and a smattering of shrubs at the front for lower wind blocking (ie agarita, pride of barbados, others??)

I am not imaging many fruit trees in the mix as I am seeing them a bit behind the wind break in more of a savanna type layout which is more typical to our area but I am open to suggestions.  The winds come mostly from the south so I can stagger the trees and shrubs height wise with the tallest at the north.  

Any suggestions or guidance at this initial stage is much appreciated!

Cameron Carter wrote:One of my main questions is about getting the thing started... I can imagine three different strategies to get the process started:
1. Put a dense amount of seeds out in fall and let them stratify naturally. Best suited win and start growing.
2. Stratify the seeds through refrigeration, nicolating, etc. and then put them out at the very end of winter tt start growing when the time is right.
3. Setup a nursey and start seeds through method two and then plant the trees a year later.

If you have a lot of seeds, I personally prefer number 1 myself if at all possible due to the extreme time and energy saver that it is. Also based on the constraints you mention below, it can be very beneficial when dealing with those issues.

I've also had pretty good luck direct seeding in a protected nursery bed, the downside being that all of the trees have to be transplanted, but I usually get a lot more trees to germinate this way.

Some of my constraints are:
I have very rocky soil. I feel like direct seeding will do better as the roots will naturally gravitate to the deeper soil pockets that I won't be able to see if I am transplanting.
Lots of deer.  I will have to put up some sort of semi -temp-permanent fencing to get the system established. However, I would like to remove the fencing eventually and still have it survive browsing.
Very hot and dry summers.  While I would prefer not to, I think I am going to have to some irrigation to get things off the ground, but I want to limit it as much as possible.

Some of the species I am considering (which is an every expanding list) are mostly nitrofixing natives that i am collecting seeds from by the road and in parks.
Black and Honey Locust
Mesquite
Redbud
Texas Mountain Laurel
Pecan
Goldenball Lead Tree (Leauceana)
Sumac
oak

Some of these trees that I have personally grown that may be good pioneer species are...

Black Locust- great fast grower here in moist or dry locations

Honey Locust- seems to prefer drier soil here

These seem to grow as secondary or later succession trees here, and do well with more fertile and mulched soil.

Pecan
Oak

Understory trees...

Redbud- loves to grow here in the dappled shade of oaks and other large trees in an established forest, and doesn't grow well in full sun here.

Hope this was helpful, and it sounds like you've got a great plan Cameron!

Steve

It depends how attached you are to any one species or to having a wide variety of trees in a few years.

If you don't care too much, just throw them down and let God sort it out.

If you do care, you will want to be selective where you put aggressive and non-aggressive species and how careful you are starting the less aggressive ones. Several of the plants you are talking about grow like weeds around here. If there is something (like pecan) which has value and might need a bit more care, you should treat that as special. If it were my yard, the locusts and sumac would dominate and the rest would never have a chance.

Personally, I don't just scatter seeds unless I'm trying to get rid of them. I almost always cold-stratify (where necessary) and start seedlings with care. Otherwise, it's usually a waste of seed and time - assuming you don't have an abundance of both. ;)

Good luck!

Not one of the options you mentioned, but I have done what you are doing.  In the interest of time and money, the best route for me was to buy seedlings.  The place I like best so far is Missouri Dept of Conservation for ordering.  The trees are in the $.50 each range and the ones I got there were very healthy with great root systems.  Not free like seeds can be, but at $.50 each, they will save you a couple years growing time, and that is well worth it to me.  It may or may not be for you, just putting it out there.  Nothing wrong with doing both either.

Missouri Dept of Conservation

You may want to consider/focus on thorny/prickly type trees so that they can be utilized as a hedge/fence to deter wildlife from your planned food forest.

You may want to focus on conifers or other non-deciduous trees so that the windbreak is effective year round.

You may want to carefully consider trees prone to suckering; these may be a hindrance or a positive.

You may want to consider average lifespans and mix slower growing, longer living trees with fast growing, generally shorter lived trees.

Naturally acquired seeds are a nice idea, but not sure how these would fair just cast upon the ground. I suspect predation and natural failure rate would render most of these non viable. Plus you would end up with such a hodge podge that thinning/managing (hem might become a full time project. As mentioned, most governments (local, state/provincial, and federal) have reforestation programs where trees are free or low cost.

I have been working on a similar project of my own for a couple years now. I have both spread seeds in the fall and have transplanted young seedlings.

I have had some luck with spreading seeds out with some germinating and growing, not many and of only a couple kinds of trees I tried.

I have had good luck with digging up seedlings that were growing in random places, in the garden, against buildings, under other trees. I just dug them up and put them where I wanted with no care afterwards. About 75% success rate on those.

While I am still doing both of those I am starting to get trees for free from the power company (government run) and possibly buying some for cheap if I have to. These I will put the extra effort into and mulch and irrigate.

Thank you all so much for the responses!  Here is where I am at currently, in thought and partway through doing. I am cutting back the windbreak-hedge area and adding a few soil amendments (sulpher) for the the high ph I have here. Then mulching with the grass and weed clippings from the surrounding areas.  Mostly, this will seed a lot of wildflowers.  I will treat this with compost tea later on once not so hot and if I get more mulchables, may add later on, including more woody bits for fungal initiation.  Very early spring, I am thinking to scarify/stratify, pull back the mulch in the planing location and over seed a bit for each species that I want in that particular spot.  This should give me a bit more control of putting what I want where and not create too much work thinning later down the road if I scattered blindly.  I will also follow up with my counties soil conservation district regarding available seedlings to see if they have any.  Thanks again and I appreciate all the feed back!