Silvopasture: Integrating Trees & Livestock

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Improved management of treed pastures can maximize land use

By Emily Mckinlay

Farmland is a limited resource, leading to a demand for more productivity from fewer acres. Silvopasture can maximize the use of marginal land and create a mutually beneficial relationship between livestock and tree crops.

“Silvopasture is a form of agroforestry,” says Simon Lafontaine, assistant professor of sustainable beef production at Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT).

“Agroforestry can be defined as the intentional combination of trees and farming in close proximity. It is a more homogenous mix of trees and farming activities.”

While silvopasture is most often used to expand pasture opportunities for ruminants, Lafontaine has also seen examples of pigs, chickens, and ducks being used in these systems.

Mike Swidersky, manager of the Grey Dufferin Community Pasture, says that with careful management, silvopasture can be a productive option to gain pasture acres.

“As cattle producers, we’ve lost a lot of our available grasslands, and we are often left with a lot of poorer land for pastures,” says Swidersky.

“For our area, that includes grazing land with trees or land that’s a bit wet and is not in demand for cropping or putting up buildings. There is a fair bit of treed land in our area that is wetter and not the most productive, but if managed correctly, it can provide good feed for livestock.”

Brett Schuyler of Schuyler Farms, a grain, apple, and cherry farm in Norfolk County, grazed sheep in their sour cherry and apple orchards, as well as some timber lots, for over a decade starting in 2010.

“Silvopasture to me is the integration of trees and pastures to support a viable farm operation,” says Schuyler.

“The environmental benefits of minimizing erosion and improving habitat diversity are exciting. This could look like growing tree fruits, nut trees, trees for timber production, with intentional grazing to manage the understory.”

Swidersky and Schuyler have used silvopasture differently on their respective operations, demonstrating that there is no singular way to apply the practice.

A spectrum of opportunity

Silvopasture exists on a spectrum. It can mix different types of agriculture, with some producers grazing an established tree fruit crop, or it can be less cultivated, with grazing in woodlots or around fence rows.

“It’s hard to define where the spectrum starts and ends. Some keep the proportion of agriculture high by having trees in windbreaks or fence rows around pastures, or by using riparian buffers where animals graze in close proximity to a tree group,” says Lafontaine.

“Other management implements more trees. When you go further down the spectrum, you enter the realm of forest or woodland grazing, where you have animals in between the trees.”

The diverse range of opportunities means that there is also no handbook or correct way to implement silvopasture. Schuyler has experimented with grazing across the spectrum and notes that trees can add extra labour to pasture management.

“The sour cherries were a good fit for silvopasture. The trees were groomed for mechanical harvest, so the bigger trees were hard for sheep to damage, even if they wanted to.

“After harvest in July, we were largely just cutting grass in the orchard, and normally having extra feed around for the sheep at that time was nice. On the apple side, we would put the sheep in after harvest to clean up grounders.”

Schuyler also grazed his sheep in scrubbier bush lots to clean up invasive and undesirable plant species, allowing more sunlight to reach the more desirable timber.

“Trees add another element to manage to ensure they are not damaged, and you are still achieving the goals of the crop,” says Schuyler.

“In both systems, intensive well-managed grazing is critical. It can be a lot to keep on top of, and you can do a lot of damage in a hurry if livestock are left in an area too long.”

Lafontaine adds that different types of silvopasture will require different approaches to management.

“The management you’re going to do will depend on the density of tree cover in that area and the kinds of plants growing where the animals can graze.”

Factoring in tree management

Many of the principles of pasture management in open fields still hold weight in silvopasture systems.

“I manage grazing in the bush similarly to the other open fields that are rotationally grazed,” says Swidersky.

“We keep cattle in one area for a couple of days, and then they get moved on and the grass recovers. The biggest difference would be that if it is wetter ground, plan on grazing it a little later in the season.”

Schuyler says that rotational grazing is important to managing their silvopasture systems as well.

“In both trees and open pastures, rotational grazing plays a big role in managing pasture.

“In either one, if animals are in an area too long, then you get overgrazing and selective grazing, and weeds will start to come through. You can cause damage like girdling trees, and that can set back years of work in a hurry.”

For producers looking to try silvopasture, Schuyler recommends working with a forester.

“There’s a lot that goes into managing a tree crop. If you are looking to bring in professional foresters, find one that has some familiarity with silvopasture so you can leverage their expertise.”

And Lafontaine recommends using the right number and species of trees to meet the grazier’s goals.

“Have enough trees for your silvopasture goals. Having one tree in a pasture is bad, but having rows on all sides will work better,” suggests Lafontaine.

“If you have too few trees, animals will concentrate in that area for shade, and that can create mud. And the manure accumulates there, so it’s not good for productivity and pasture in general.”

If new trees are being planted near a grazing area, make sure they are protected to avoid unexpected grazing damage.

Mutually beneficial

Silvopasture can offer reciprocal benefits for both the animals and trees being managed.

“I think silvopasture is a great tool for climate change mitigation, from a carbon aspect,” says Lafontaine.

“Shade can be important to livestock as well. With access to shade, calves are healthier, cows are more fertile, and growing animals have been observed to have better weight gain, especially in heat waves.”

Lafontaine has been working on research exploring how trees, in the form of fence rows, windbreaks, or riparian buffers, can be integrated into grazing systems for beef cattle.

“We have set up some experimental sites that integrated rows of trees every 100 meters in pastures,” says Lafontaine.

The research team planted poplars, red maples, and white spruce trees to assess their performance and determine any interactions between tree species.

“We were interested in seeing which species perform best and if there is an interaction between trees, between species, or across species.

“The study has to do with soil carbon and biodiversity. This is the fifth summer since we planted trees in 2020. We knew poplars would grow fast, and the trees are already fairly large and making some shade for the livestock.”

Lafontaine also plans to study the potential benefits of trees as feed sources.

“It may be a novelty factor, but if a tree falls down after a storm and you rotate animals into that paddock, they often go straight for that tree,” says Lafontaine.

“What usually grows inside or around pastures is not that palatable. It’s resilient to grazing, which gives us a false sense that they don’t like trees.”

Lafontaine says this often comes down to palatability, and the team is working to determine which tree species could be used for feed.

Beyond the direct benefits to the livestock and trees in silvopasture systems, these treed grazing areas offer habitats for new ecosystems to expand on the farm. Both Swidersky and Schuyler have observed an increase in birds, bugs, and wildlife in their silvopasture areas.

“One overwhelming benefit we have observed in all these sites is the wildlife that starts coming around with those new habitats,” says Schuyler.

“There’s not a lot of intermediate habitat in between open fields and mature woodlots. When the woodlots get opened up with grazing, you start seeing more birds and bugs. No one pays you for that, but there’s a lot of pride in it.”

Swidersky has been working with the staff of Bird Ecology and Conservation Ontario (BECO) to study the bird populations at the community pasture.

“There haven’t really been a lot of studies on what species of birds are in our wooded grazing areas,” says Swidersky.

“When we were doing meadowlark studies on the community pasture, the staff of BECO mentioned that woodpeckers in general are not overly common in Southern Ontario and we have all four main species present where they were studying, and I wonder if that maybe has something to do with the treed areas that we are maintaining.”

Swidersky adds, “People don’t realize that farmers actually like wildlife and enjoy seeing their comings and goings.”

The animal welfare, tree management, and environmental benefits of silvopasture all fit into an overarching goal of maximizing land use in a time when farmland is rapidly depleted.

Swidersky says, “The areas we are using for silvopasture have been grazed for a number of years. It is land that is available, and taxes are being paid on it. We need to make sure we can utilize everything we have.” BF