Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853
Performing Department
Natural Resources
Non Technical Summary
Technical information is not available to help maple producers satisfy a growing market demand for local, sustainably produced, and natural food products. This project tests and develops solutions for these economic and environmental needs. The project will help revitalize and stabilize the rural economy of upstate NY. Additionally, it incentivizes the stewardship of intact forests, which advances carbon neutral goals for NY through C-sequestration in forest soils and biomass. According to USDA NASS (2020), New York State produced 820,000 gallons of maple syrup valued at $26.5 million in 2019. Within these thousands of NY maple farms, there is an opportunity to utilize the existing land resource (the sugarbush) to produce a suite of healthy, high-value food crops in the forest understory. Growing food in this sustainable, multi-story cropping system will diversify product offerings for maple farmers and protect forest ecosystems. Consumers are mobilized to act towards New York's carbon-neutral objectives by supporting products and industries that help meet these goals. Growing demand for local and sustainably produced goods creates healthy markets for the products that will be developed through this project. In addition to climate change mitigation, product diversification will help maple businesses by stabilizing revenue, improving competitive positioning through brand differentiation, and mitigating risk against price downturns.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
A pilot research/demonstration plot was established in a section of the Arnot Forest's sugarbush that is protected from deer. These plots are a trial establishment of shade tolerant crops such as paw paw, site preparation for future plantings, and assessment of feasibility of site for the experimentation proposed in this project. Pilot plot observations support the feasibility of the site for agroforestry use, with survival of paw paw plantings, and range of sunlight conditions, and pre-established useful native crops. Investigation is required to assess other domestic and native crops across this range of light conditions, and further investigation of site preparation (e.g., management of interfering plants such as hayscented ferns (Dennstaedtia punctilobula)) must be explored.Identify best-suited crops and best commercial varieties for cultivation in a partial-shade maple forest system. Evaluate crop survival, vigor, and yield for plantings at the Arnot Forest.Identify best practices for maintaining key crops in a maple forest system.Identify best practices for spatial arrangement of crops for ease of harvesting and maintenance, ideal light conditions, and economical use of space.Research & develop new recipes and processes for value-added maple products featuring forest grown crops.
Project Methods
Obj1Key crops include: paw paw, elderberry , wild berries (Rubus spp.), currants (Ribes spp.), lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), juneberries, cornelian cherries (Cornus mas), ramps (Allium tricoccum), ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), shiitake (Lentinula edodes), reishi (Ganoderma spp.), wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), various wild herbs.Crop/variety selection will be based on literature review and consultation with experts. We will seek the following characteristics: high yield in shaded conditions, resistance to diseases, ease of planting/transplanting, tolerance of cold winters, and tolerance of forest soils.During growing and harvest season, we will measure: plant vigor, flowering, percent successful pollination, fruit size, ratio of berry to strigs (currants), total fruit mass per plant. We will use these metrics to compare different commercial varieties, and compare the same varieties across different environmental conditions (see research objective 3). We will analyze data collected across 3 growing and harvest seasons to develop cost analysis of beginning an agroforestry venture in a sugarbush.Obj.2To identify best practices for maintenance of key forest crops in the sugarbush, we will identify potential barriers to adoption of agroforestry practices by maple producers and evaluate the efficacy of various solutions. Additionally, we will quantify the time and dollar costs of a variety of maintenance techniques to provide maple producers with the necessary tools for decision making related to multi-story crop system establishment in the sugarbush.Maintenance practices to be evaluated include those at the individual crop level, and the site level. Site level maintenance poses the largest barrier to entry for maple producers interested in growing additional forest crops.(i) Individual crop maintenance activities will be assessed quantitatively and qualitatively. Crop maintenance methods will differ depending on spatial arrangement of the multi-story crop system (see research objective 3). Maintenance activities include: pruning, staking/training, hand pollinating, pollinator attraction, harvesting, and pest control. Methods will be measured for time, cost, and efficacy.(ii) Site maintenance methodologies will be developed to best utilize or overcome existing maple sugaring infrastructure.Irrigation techniques will be developed utilizing existing maple sap lines in the sugarbush.Methodologies for removal of interfering vegetation (such as ferns) will be evaluated for time, cost, and effectiveness, and will include chemical and manual control.Other necessary site preparation or maintenance techniques will be identified through literature review, consultation with agroforestry specialists, and experience at the Arnot Forest site.These assessments of various maintenance practices described in (i) and (ii) are likely to have different results from assessments of the same practices in a traditional farming setting due to uneven terrain, forest related disturbance events, unique pests, increased difficulty of site access, etc. The knowledge gap for adopting agroforestry practices in the sugarbush has been identified as a barrier to entry for maple producers, and these assessments will help to quantify profitability of this type of business model.Obj. 3To identify best practices for spatial arrangement of forest-grown crops, we will first conduct a literature review of temperate forest agroforestry practices, and intercropping practices that can be applied to the sugarbush. Additionally, we will delineate the agroforestry plot into subplots that represent diverse environmental conditions, most significantly, a gradient of light conditions. Environmental characteristics that will be measured include: sunlight hours, sunlight intensity, soil pH, soil nutrients, soil moisture.Crops will be affected by a mix of individual genetics, environmental conditions, and interactions with other species in the multi-story system.We will then evaluate the efficacy of chosen spatial arrangement practices along the following criteria:(i) Yield, vigor, and growth of selected crops. To compare these metrics across the established gradients of environmental conditions, subplots will be standardized to include the same varieties, and number of plantings per subplot at an adequate sample size for reasonable statistical significance.(ii) Ease of harvest and maintenance. This will be assessed qualitatively, although lost crop due to difficulty of harvest may be quantified.(iii) Efficient use of space. This will be measured by harvest yielded per subplot, and the corresponding dollar value of the harvest per subplot.Obj. 4We will evaluate the compatibility of key crops with maple syrup for flavor, marketability, and desirable properties (e.g., nutritional, physical, chemical). Ingredients will be sourced externally while Arnot Forest plantings are too young to yield a harvest. Research and development of new, multi-ingredient maple value-added products utilizing other forest products will be undertaken by food science staff in the new Arnot Forest Research Kitchen, as well as by industry collaborators.There will be three focus groups for recipe development: fermentations, preserves, dietary supplements. These include: pickles, jams, infused vinegars, kombucha, wine, herbal teas, powdered supplements (nutraceuticals). In addition to utilizing planted forest crops, recipes will allow growers to utilize native and non-native species that commonly grow wild in the sugarbush, e.g., garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), cleavers (Galium aparine), sumac (Rhus typhina), St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica), burdock (Arctium lappa), chicory (Cichorium intybus), reishi, fiddleheads (Matteuccia struthiopteris), ramps.Recipes and production guidelines will be publicly shared by the Cornell Maple Program, scheduled processes will be acquired, and products will be market tested.