VOLUME 17 ISSUE ONE

IT’S true, there is a relatively small

budget for agroforestry research and

there are a limited number of scientists

working in the field. 

However, with strong partnerships

and a focused research program, the

USDA National Agroforestry Center

(NAC) is rooted in fertile soil and takes

advantage of being a GMO (government

modified organization) that is a unique

hybrid of Forest Service Research, State

& Private Forestry, and the Natural

Resources Conservation Service. 

Similar to the improved seedlings

above, NAC is a small research facility

with enhanced productivity. By 

cultivating partnerships and leveraging

resources, valuable tools and information are unleashed that are answering

the right questions that pay off big in

the field. 

Take a look inside this issue of “Inside

Agroforestry” for the latest information

about what is happening with 

agroforestry research. ]

Small, but mighty

Originial photo courtesy of Kasten Dumroese
In search of answers

NAC Director’s Corner

A commentary on the status of agroforestry by Dr. Greg Ruark, NAC Program Manager

2 Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One

TREES in an agroforestry system are intended to be

Working Trees that produce conservation and/or economic benefits. However, research is often needed to help

landowners achieve these intended goals. When trees are

incorporated into on-going farm or ranch operation, or

an existing tract of forest is modified, science helps us to

understand how an intended agroforestry system functions to produce the desired benefits. Examples include

studies done to determine the most effective planting

density and arrangement of shelterbelts for reducing wind

velocity in adjacent crop fields in order to lessen soil erosion and evapotranspiration loss. Other studies help

determine the best mixture of trees, shrubs, grasses, and

other plants to establish in a denuded riparian zone to

restore a functioning riparian forest ecosystem that can

protect water quality, reinforce stream banks, and

enhance wildlife habitat. Spatial models provide insight

into where in a watershed to locate upland and riparian

buffers to optimize conservation benefits at the landscape

scale. Research also develops the maintenance protocols to

keep agroforestry practices economically productive and

environmentally functioning. In situations where a tract

of forest already exists, agroforestry research is studying

ways to modify the understory to encourage the propagation and growth of a wide variety of commercially valuable non-timber forest produces, such as black cohosh,

goldenseal, and ramps. This includes efforts to determine

nursery protocol for producing and outplanting many

species of native understory plants. To help improve economics, silvopasture research is providing landowners the

information needed to blend timber production, livestock

grazing, and wildlife benefits on the same tract of land.

Although the national investment in agroforestry research

has been modest, significant progress has been made to

clearly demonstrate the high potential that agroforestry

practices hold for landowners. ]

THIS handbook provides a step-by-step protocol for determining optimal (variable) buffer

widths for water quality and wildlife that maximize riparian ecosystem benefits and minimize the loss of productive farm and ranch

land. It contains a companion C D including a

case study, data forms, worksheets, reference

appendices, and other informational material.

For Water Quality and Wildlife Habitat Functions on

Agricultural Landscapes in the Intermountain West

] General Technical Report

RMRS-GTR-203 available at

www.fs.fed.us/rm/publications/

or at http://treesearch.fs.fed.us/

pubs/viewpub.jsp?index=29201.

By Craig W. Johnson and Susan Buffler

Riparian Buffer Design Guidelines
Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One 3

THE wonderful thing about agroforestry is that agroforestry practices,

properly located and designed, can help

tackle environmental and production

issues at many levels. 

Traditional agroforestry practices, like

windbreaks, riparian forest buffers, and

alley cropping are rooted in farm and

ranch lands where they convert land back

to permanent vegetation and help improve

and diversify a landowner’s income. Here,

agroforestry conserves soil, reduces home

and farm energy consumption, and diversifies and protects crops and livestock.

When carefully planned and designed,

agroforestry also addresses non-farm

issues, like enhancing outdoor education

and aesthetics. Many, small- to mid-sized

acreage homeowners are more motivated

by scenery, wildlife, and privacy than they

are by production. Consequently, a network of agroforestry natural areas and

parks among agricultural, acreage, and

urban developments provide these amenities to homeowners, all the while creating

a sense of place and community.

While agroforestry practices on farms

and in and around communities are busy

reducing soil erosion, increasing crop

production, and creating greenways they

are providing additional benefits to the

public. These benefits, like water quality,

wildlife habitat, pollination services, and

carbon storage are called ecosystem services and are extremely important

socially, economically, and ecologically.

The unique collaborative approach

used by scientists at the USDA National

Agroforestry Center has far-reaching

effects. By identifying technology gaps

and working with partners, they are strategically developing conservation and production technologies for private lands.

These tools and methods influence the

way individual landowners do business

and the benefits we all derive from it. ]

Kimberly Stuhr

Technology Transfer Specialist / Inside

Agroforestry Editor, Lincoln, N E

NAC scientists are researching site, 

landscape, and regional scale 

applications of agroforestry. 

Original photo: NAC file photo
Some

assembly

required

4 Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One

see Tools on page 10

TOOL development guides most of the

tree-based buffer research at NAC. NAC

researchers in Lincoln review and organize scientific knowledge and then synthesize and distill that knowledge into a

form that helps land managers make

everyday decisions about where to install

a practice, how to design it, and how to

manage it in order to achieve desired

results. These tools help to ensure that

agroforestry practices will be successful.

Deciding what tools to work on is a

constant challenge. We continually assess

the needs of field professionals through

frequent discussions with NAC technology transfer specialists, in-house and

external NRCS partners, and through

organized conferences and user forums.

There are a lot of demands and our

research group is small, so the list must be

prioritized. Ideas that float to the top are

those that are in higher demand, have the

greatest potential for national or regional

impact, fill a larger information gap, and

can be produced the quickest. 

Next, we look for opportunities to

combine our limited resources with those

of partners who have similar interests,

including universities, nongovernmental

organizations, and government agencies.

Buffer-type agroforestry practices (e.g.,

riparian forest buffers, windbreaks) have

received a great deal of attention over the

last several years.

Producing tools can be as straightforward as reviewing and synthesizing information found in scientific papers and

translating it into agroforestry-focused

guidelines. Often, however, new research is

needed to fill critical information gaps

before a useful tool can be developed. This

can involve field experiments and mathematical modeling. Conducting new research

can significantly increase the time and

resources it takes to produce a new product.

water quality,

wildlife, aesthetics,

soil protection,

economic opportunities, and

public health and

safety. Over 1400

research papers

from diverse scientific disciplines were

reviewed and synthesized into a manageable set of illustrated, easy-to-understand,

design guidelines. Numerous partners with

varied expertise helped review and refine

them. This tool is now in the process of

being published and will be posted on the

NAC website when it becomes available. 

Buffer$ cost/benefit tool

Buffer$, was developed to promote the

economic benefits of adopting agroforestry practices to landowners. It computes the economic costs and benefits of

installing and managing buffer practices

over the long term. Buffer$ can be

ordered or downloaded from NAC at

www.unl.edu/nac/buffer$.htm.

Conservation buffer guidelines

Another design tool was developed to be a

comprehensive source of information to

design vegetative buffers for any of several

different agroforestry benefits, including

Mike Dosskey, Research Riparian

Ecologist; Gary Bentrup, Research

Landscape Planner; Lincoln, N E

Buffer placement tool for water

quality

This tool identifies locations in a landscape, both riparian and upland, where soil

and slope conditions would enable a buffer

to be more effective for reducing sediment

and nutrient loads to streams. For many

years riparian forest and other vegetative

buffers have been

recommended as a

water quality

improvement practice, yet watershed

managers have

lacked quantitative

tools for guiding

their placement and

Here are five tools that NAC researchers have developed to help

you plan and design agroforestry buffers:

* tools 

included
Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One 5

NON-TIMBER forest resources are

diverse, just like the people who harvest,

process, and consume them. The people

are eclectic and actually an enigma to most

foresters and natural resource managers.

Identifying, contacting, and working with

these people to improve forest resource

management are challenging at best. Few

research institutions have endeavored to

do so. The USDA National Agroforestry

Center is an exception. Jim Chamberlain,

a non-timber forest products (NTFP)

researcher located at Virginia Tech

University has been working directly with

collectors and harvesters of NTFPs to find

ways to better manage the resources from

whence they originate.

Beginning in 2001, Chamberlain made

a concerted effort to find and work with

harvesters and related industry folks.

Unlike the timber industry, there are no

directories of NTFP enterprises. His initial

efforts focused on collectors of ramps,

smelly potent wild onions that are the

mainstay for annual festivals organized by

local civic groups. That first year, he visited

churches, fire departments, rescue squads,

county extension offices, local roadside

markets, and small “mom-and-pop” stores,

in search of organizers of the unique ramp

festivals in western North Carolina.

After identifying about a dozen groups,

the next challenge was to convince them

that his motives were altruistic. Many

were skeptical that a government scientist

could really be interested in finding ways

to ensure that they could harvest ramps

from national forests in perpetuity. The

first group sent him off to one patch,

while the main group went to their traditional digging place. Understandably, they

didn’t want to reveal their main source of

ramps. Through perseverance and open

communication, these challenges have

been overcome, and today Chamberlain is

welcomed by the group to harvest in their

staple patch. Working with other NTFP

harvesters presented challenges as well.

Herbalists and natural healers use medicinal plants that are collected from natural forests. Black cohosh is native to the

Appalachian Mountains and is used to

treat menopausal symptoms. Increased

market demand, coupled with a lack of

knowledge about managing this important forest resource, prompted the

Medicinal Plant Working Group, part of

the Plant Conservation Alliance, of which

the Forest Service is a member, teamed up

with the Garden Club of America, to

address conservation concerns regarding

this species. The goal of this volunteer citizen-scientist effort was to examine the

impacts of harvesting and generate the

knowledge necessary to support sound

recommendations on how to best manage

the black cohosh resources. 

In 2005, Chamberlain joined the

team, strengthening the group’s research

effort. Permanent long-term research

plots were established in two locations in

the Blue Ridge Mountains. Initial plans

were to measure and harvest these sites

annually, using volunteer citizen scientists. The first year more than 20 volunteers showed up to help collect data from

the southern site. Only seven volunteers

came out for the northern site. All went

well that year and the future looked

promising. The next year, most of the

volunteers showed up to collect data on

the northern site. But, data collection on

the southern site had to be cancelled due

to lack of volunteers. With more outreach

to more groups, the project was able to

attract enough volunteers to collect data

on the southern site, this past year. 

Those interested in NTFPs have not

been in the mainstream of Forest Service

research and development. Just finding

these people is a challenge. Convincing

harvesters and industry folks to open up

and share their knowledge takes time and

requires transparent communication.

Collecting reliable and consistent data

from volunteer citizen scientists requires

extra effort as well. But, the benefits of

increasing the diversity of Forest Service

clientele, reaching out to under-served

community members, and folks that may

be skeptical of the government are well

worth the effort. ]

Diverse stakeholders enhance research

James Chamberlain

USFS Research Scientist, Non-Timber

Forest Products, Blacksburg, V A

Many local NTFP collectors are skeptical

that a government scientist would really be

interested in finding ways to ensure that

they can harvest plants from natural forests

into perpetuity. NAC file photo

Working with volunteer 

citizen scientists requires

extra effort.Many aren’t

involved with mainstream

research;just finding them

is a challenge.
Tree-based 

buffer tools and 

technologies to

restore

ecosystem 

services on 

agricultural and

rural/urban lands

THE USDA National Agroforestry

Center’s (NAC) modis operendi (M O or

method of operations) is all about catalyzing, facilitating, and accelerating

agroforestry technology development and

delivery at a national scale as efficiently as possible. “Bigger

Michele Schoeneberger

Research Program Leader / Soil

Scientist, Lincoln, N E

Product-driven research

NAC’s goal is to catalyze, facilitate, and accelerate research

critical to the development of targeted tree-based conservation

and production technologies for private lands. The small staff

accomplishes this by relying on partnerships and external 

infrastructure to leverage the resources needed.

bang per buffer buck,” as we like to say;

something we are only able to accomplish by leveraging resources through

partnerships. 

NAC’s Research & Development

(R&D) programs seek to provide the scientific basis required for information and

technology development. Needless to say,

given the variety of practices and settings

into which these technologies are applied

nationally, this is a daunting task and

R&D must rely on NAC’s M O to address

the research needs out there. 

So how does NAC’s R&D Program, a

relatively small program, accomplish this?

Under the newly realigned research

work unit at the Southern Research

Station, NAC’s R&D internal program

is focused in four main areas:

Nursery and

restoration 

technologies

page 5

Non-timber forest

products 

page 4

page 9

Silvopasture

page 8

Photo by Lynn Betts, U SD A NR CS

NAC file photo

Photo by Greg Ruark

Photo courtesy of

Kasten Dumroese

6 Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One
Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One 7

Partnerships

You will note in the articles in this issue of

“Inside Agroforestry” that even this

internal research program relies heavily on

collaboration with many different 

partners. Without the research leadership

of other institutions on many other

agroforestry fronts, NAC would

not be able to accomplish

its mission in advancing

agroforestry science,

technology, and

delivery.

Looks internally

When the other avenues are not available for addressing a particular research need,

the NAC then looks to its two other options for getting things

done: the work is either taken on internally by NAC scientists,

or since expertise and resources are limited within NAC’s R&D

staff, NAC works to facilitate the development of research programs at these other institutions. 

Both must be approached very strategically as research dollars

and scientists are very limited at the NAC. ]

Looks outward

Next, R&D looks outward – to see

if the information gap is or can be

addressed by other research “engines” – such as the

USDA Agricultural Research Service, U S Geological Survey, or

universities. As a means to accelerate and/or better focus these

external research efforts, R&D develops cooperative research ventures for financial support. While extra funding is always nice, the

real leveraging of resources comes from the collaboration between

the scientists themselves at NAC and the external institutions.

Many times the data produced from these cooperative research

ventures are then utilized by NAC scientists to facilitate additional

partnerships in order to go after other extramural funding, such as

the CSREES – National Research Initiative programs. 

Works with TT&A Program

By being directly coupled to the

Technology Transfer and

Applications (T T&A) Program

at NAC, R&D works with

T T&A to identify key

information gaps.

Identifies information gaps

These gaps are tackled by first doing

“research” – looking to see if information

already exists out “on the shelves” and can

readily be pulled in, or if needed, 

modified or synthesized to fit the specific

demand and current context.
8 Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One

IN the United States, over 1000 nurseries annually produce more than 1.2 

billion seedlings for forest and wildland

restoration activities. One of the missions

of the USDA National Agroforestry

Center’s Nursery and Restoration

Program is to make the latest scientific

information available to those nurseries

to help ensure immediate use of new

native plant propagation information

and outplanting technologies, and promote environmentally and economically

sound nursery production practices. For

the past several years, additional focus of

the program has been delivery of nursery

technology information to American

Indians. 

The Nursery and Restoration Program

synthesizes and distributes information in

four important ways:

“Forest Nursery Notes” is published

twice each year and distributed to over

1000 nursery managers and restoration

specialists around the world. Each issue

contains several articles synthesizing some

of the latest scientific information and

providing potential management implications of that work. In addition, each issue

has a bibliography of the latest papers

dealing with nursery and restoration issues,

and subscribers can request a C D containing reprints of most of those articles.

The Native Plant Network is an online, searchable database of techniques for

growing specific native plants. Individual

nursery managers can upload information

they have developed, as well as search for

additional information provided by

others. Currently the database contains

more than 2800 protocols from across the

U S and Canada.

The Reforestation, Nurseries, and

Genetics Resources (RNGR) website,

managed by the program, is a searchable

database of thousands of publications

dealing with nursery production of

native plants and subsequent outplanting. Classic publications, like “Tree

Planters’ Notes” and the “Container

Tree Nursery Manual,” are available, as

well as dozens of nursery proceedings

and specialty publications. The site provides information for a range of expertise, from beginners to professionals.

The program’s on-going tribal

emphasis has enabled American Indians

to grow their own native plants for cultural, spiritual, medicinal, and restoration

activities. Annual activities include coordination of the Intertribal Nursery

Council and a hands-on workshop.

Through this emphasis a Cultural Plant

Propagation Center was constructed at

Moencopi Day School in Tuba City, A Z

to foster educational opportunities for

Hopi and Navajo school children and

produce plants for wildland restoration

on the Hopi Reservation. ]

Nursery and Restoration Program:

Synthesizing research and sharing knowledge

Kasten Dumroese

Research Plant Physiologist / National

Nursery Specialist, Moscow, I D

Take advantage of RNGR’s online resources

NAC’s nursery and reforestation tribal emphasis provides American Indians the 

opportunity to grow their own native plants for cultural, spiritual, medicinal, and 

restoration activities. Photo courtesy of Kasten Dumroese

] Reforestation,

Nurseries, and Genetics

Resources (RNGR)

Database – A searchable

compilation of nursery and

reforestation publications

from 1950 through present.

http://rngr.net/

] Native Plant Network –

A searchable database 

containing more than 2800

protocols for nursery 

production of native plants. 

www.nativeplantnetwork.

org/

] Growing Forest Tree

Seedlings At Home – An

easy-to-understand manual

targeting small landowners

and hobbyists. 

http://rngr.net/Publications/

rsah
Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One 9

LIMITED staff and tight budgets make

it impossible for the USDA National

Agroforestry Center, (NAC) to be

actively engaged in every aspect of agroforestry research. But through partnering

with others, like the Alabama Forestry

Commission and local universities, NAC

has been effective in driving the research

agenda. 

Last year, NAC Director, Greg

Ruark, gave a presentation about silvopasture management to the Alabama

Forestry Commission. Afterwards,

Alabama State Forester, Linda Casey,

wanted to set up a silvopasture field tour

for her leadership staff to discuss new

ideas that could support silvopasture

research and technology development.

A coordination team with representatives from the U S Forest Service –

Southern Research Station, local NRCS,

NRCS National Technology Support

Center in Greensboro, N C, Auburn

University, Alabama A&M University,

and the Alabama Forestry Commission,

toured existing silvopasture sites as well as

the Alabama Forestry Commission’s

Hauss Nursery near Atmore, A L. Two

issues rose to the top of discussions; longleaf pine and native grasses and forage to

support native wildlife in silvopastures. 

The Alabama Forestry Commission

sees silvopasture as a viable alternative

plantation management scheme for private forest owners who face a rapidly

changing and challenging market. Today,

these landowners, in addition to pulp and

timber sales, are interested in wildlife of

all kinds, especially turkey and quail. 

Some of the Alabama Forestry

Commission’s seed production nurseries

are going out of production, but not out

of ownership, providing an opportunity

to establish 80 acres of replicated plots of

longleaf and loblolly pine silvopastures

with three different forage treatments.

Some plots are all native grasses, some are

all improved forage grasses, and some are

a mixture of native and improved forages. 

NAC’s technical expertise, coupled

with installation and maintenance

expenses that the Alabama Forestry

Commission is willing to take on is the

foundation for answering specific research

questions like how to manage wildlife use

and forage production of different silvopasture management systems. ]

Silvopasture research: leveraging resources

Richard Straight

F S Lead Agroforester, Lincoln, N E

By cooperating with others NAC scientists are able to stretch both time and money to answer specific research questions. Photo by Greg Ruark

Silvopasture is a viable

alternative plantation 

management scheme for

private forest owners who

face a rapidly changing 

and challenging market.
design. This problem is especially acute where regulatory limits

such as Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) and Maximum

Contaminant Level, (MCL), must be met and funding for doing

so is limited. The buffer placement tool interprets familiar and

widely-available soil surveys to guide you to locations where

impact would be greater and away from those locations where

impact is likely to be minimal. Visit NAC’s website for more

information about the buffer placement tool: www.unl.edu/

nac/research/2006soilsurveys.pdf.

Buffer width tool for water quality

The buffer width tool enables you to calculate an appropriate

buffer width for a given site to achieve the desired level of pollutant reduction. It is a graphical simplification of a complex mathematical model and is designed to be accurate enough for developing cost-effective site designs yet easy enough to use to make

quick determinations on a large number and variety of agricultural

sites. The buffer width tool focuses on surface runoff and takes

agricultural field length, cover management, slope, soil texture,

and pollutant type into consideration. This tool is now in the

process of being published in an applied research journal, and will

be available on the NAC website after it is published.

Research partners have been invaluable in the development of

both of these water quality tools. New research by faculty and

graduate students at the University of Nebraska and Iowa State

University produced the information that these tools were developed from and

helped to produce these tools.

CanVis: visual

simulation

software

CanVis enables a

landowner to see

what alternative

designs will look

like on their

property. CanVis

software is an

entry-level program that allows resource professionals to create photo-realistic

simulations with minimal computer skills. More information on

CanVis is available at www.unl.edu/nac/simulation/index.htm.

All NAC tools are available at no cost to users by ordering

print or C D versions, or by downloading digital versions,

through the NAC website, www.unl.edu/nac. ]

10 Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One

agroforestry research websites

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Treesearch – The largest freely available collection

of online forestry research in the world.

www.treesearch.fs.fed.us

Forest Encyclopedia Network – Connects scientific

results, conclusions, and impacts with management

needs and issues. www.forestryencyclopedia.net

University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry –

Interdisciplinary agroforestry science collaboration.

www.centerforagroforestry.org

University of Florida Center for Subtropical

Agroforestry – A multidisciplinary, multi-institutional

initiative with activities in research, extension, 

education, and training. http://cstaf.ifas.ufl.edu

Agriculture Research Service – Two research sites are

involved with agroforestry research: www.ars.usda.

gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=2354 and www.ars.usda.

gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=19-32-00-00

Agroforestry.net – One of the most comprehensive

sources of tropical agroforestry information.

http://agroforestry.net/aflibr.html

Silvopasture in the Southeast – Blog with articles,

research, and tools. Serves as a forum to share ideas

and experiences. http://silvopasture.blogspot.com

World Agroforestry Center – uses science to generate

knowledge on the complex role of trees in livelihoods

and environment. www.worldagroforestrycentre.org

Iowa State University – Includes researchers from

forestry, agronomy, animal ecology, earth resources,

entomology, and plant pathology. www.forestry.

iastate.edu/res/agroforestry.html

Agroforestry Research Trust – A temperate agroforestry non-profit. www.agroforestry.co.uk

Tools

continued from page 4
Inside Agroforestry | Volume 17 Issue One 11

IN addition to food and fiber production,

agricultural lands must address other concerns, such as water quality and wildlife

habitat, and are now being looked at to

also address the emerging issues of climate

change and the need for greater independence on foreign oil. Agroforestry practices

can play an important role in achieving

these diverse objectives, like food and fiber

production, energy, and greenhouse gas

mitigation, but, most importantly, they

can help link these objectives. 

We already know that regardless of

the intent for establishing an agroforestry

planting, it will mitigate greenhouse gas

(GHG) production by sequestering

carbon, especially in the aboveground

woody components. Agroforestry can also

contribute to GHG mitigation through

Working Trees for carbon, and bioenergy, too

reduction in fertilizer and equipment use,

greater irrigation efficiency, and microclimate control of buildings; providing energy

savings. These same Working Trees

plantings also have the potential to play

numerous roles in support of agricultural

based energy strategies, be it bioenergy 

production or providing energy savings.

Scientists with the USDA National

Agroforestry Center’s (NAC) Research &

Development (R&D) Program have been

working to advance the scientific basis and

tools needed to optimize agroforestry’s

potential to address climate and energy

issues, to communicate these findings into

products that will further the acceptance

and adoption of these practices, and

increase the awareness and support by

policy and program makers. They are

working with many collaborators to address

critical information gaps that hamper our

ability to readily measure, report, and predict carbon in agroforestry plantings. In

regards to energy, the scientists are

looking at feedstock and bio-product

potentials of different woody species, as

well as what modifications in species mixtures, arrangements, and size and management of practices would be needed to

meet the various roles these plantings

could play along the energy continuum.

Three of the most significant projects

include:

• Equations for estimating biomass and

carbon production in agroforestry 

tree and shrub species with the 

University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

• Energy values for agroforestry plant 

species; potential arrangements/

planting designs with CINRAM – 

University of Minnesota

• Estimating carbon sequestration and 

voluntary reporting by an online tool

called COMET-V R being developed 

by the NRCS. ]

Michele Schoeneberger

Research Program Leader / Soil

Scientist, Lincoln, N E

Working Trees serve many functions along an energy continuum. Original photo by Lynn Betts, USDA NRCS
USDA National Agroforestry Center

East Campus–UNL

Lincoln, NE 68583–0822

PRSRT STD

POSTAGE & FEES PAID

USDA — FS

PERMIT NO G-40

June 30–July 2, 2008

Summer Specialty Conference:

“Riparian Ecosystems and Buffers: 

Working at the Water's Edge.” 

Virginia Beach, VA. For more 

information: http://awra.org/

meetings/Virginia_Beach2008/

August 18–22, 2008

Short Rotation Crops International 

Conference: “Biofuels, Bioenergy, and 

Bioproducts from Sustainable 

Agriculture and Forest Crops.” 

Bloomington, M N . For more 

information: www.cinram.umn.edu/

srwc/index.html

September 9–1, 2008

Great Plains Riparian Forest 

Management Summit. Sioux Falls, S D.

For more information: www.unl.edu/

nac/Riparian_Summit.htm

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use, $300

Address Service Requested

InsideAgroforestry VOLUME 17 ISSUE ONE

Upcoming Events

“Inside Agroforestry” is published three times per year by the

USDA National Agroforestry Center. Phone: 402–437–

5178; Fax: 402–437–5712.

• Greg Ruark, NAC Program Manager (256–372–4540)

• Michele Schoeneberger, FS Research Lead (ext. 4021)

• Richard Straight, FS Lead Agroforester (ext. 4024)

• Bruce Wight, NRCS Lead Agroforester (ext. 4036)

• Kimberly Stuhr, Technology Transfer Specialist/

“Inside Agroforestry” Editor (ext. 4013)

• Ryan Dee, Technology Transfer Assistant/

“Inside Agroforestry” Designer (ext. 4014)

www.unl.edu/nac

Mission

The USDA National Agroforestry Center (NAC) is a partnership of

the Forest Service (Research & Development and State & Private

Forestry) and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. It is

administered by the Forest Service, Southern Research Station; and

its program manager and headquarters are located in Huntsville, A L,

on the campus of Alabama A&M University, while NAC’s staff are

located at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, N E; University of

Idaho, Moscow, ID; and in Blacksburg, V A. NAC’s purpose is to

accelerate the development and application of agroforestry technologies to attain more economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable land use systems. To accomplish its mission, NAC interacts

with a national network of partners and cooperators to conduct

research, develop technologies and tools, establish demonstrations,

and provide useful information to natural resource professionals.

Policy

USDA policy prohibits discrimination

because of race, color, national origin,

sex, age, religion, or handicapping 

condition. Any person who believes he

or she has been discriminated against in

any USDA-related activity should 

immediately contact the Secretary of

Agriculture, Washington, D C 20250.

Opinions expressed in “Inside

Agroforestry” are those of the author

and do not necessarily represent the

policy of the USDA Forest Service and

the USDA Natural Resources

Conservation Service.

For more upcoming events, visit our 

website calendar: www.unl.edu/nac/

calendar.htm.