The most common practices that benefit your soil’s health include conservation crop rotation, cover crop, no-till, mulch tillage, nutrient and pest management. Implementation of other conservation practices, such as field windbreaks also improves soil health and provides long-term environmental and economic benefits.

A field windbreak offers a variety of benefits

• Alters wind flow and microclimate
• Protects wind sensitive crops
• Controls wind erosion
• Increases bee pollination and pesticide effectiveness
• Results in a net increase in crop production
• Positively influences soil health on protected cropland acres
• Improves water-use efficiency by lowering soil evaporation rates across protected areas

The size of the area protected by a windbreak is determined by its height and density. Generally its influence extends into fields about 20 times the height of the windbreak (20H) and affects crops and soil environment.  Windbreaks with properly-spaced tree and shrub row reduce erosion across the field and keep organic materials on fields where it benefits both the crops and soil biology.

Trees are available to landowners for conservation purposes at a low cost. Select the species and quantity (multiples of 25) and enclose a check with your order. Trees are bare root stock, and will be available for pick-up in early spring.