Kevin Kelly with the award he received from the Support Iowa farmer organization on his work to establish vegetative buffers around livestock facilities through out the Midwest. We have done work to establish vegetative buffers for livestock buildings in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio Minnesota, North Carolina, and Iowa. Support Iowas Farmers has named KTF as a provider of advice and plant material, for people who want to do a buffer planting around any type of livestock facility.
Planting Austree Willows. around a hog facility.
Give us a call or E-mail and see what we can do for your operation.
ktf@netins.net or 563-452-4300
The three pictures below is what we can do for you in 3 years.
Picture 1 above is a hog building in Iowa just before we planted it.
We used 2 rows of potted austrees 5 ft tall spaced 8 ft apart in the row and 8 ft. between rows. We are looking south in Picture 1.
Picture 2 above is the result after 2 years, they are about 16 ft tall, and are already catching lots of blowing snow coming into the area.
Picture 3 above, after 3 years of growth, we have trees about 25 ft tall, they are now catching all the snow and providing some real windbreak protection even in the winter. The building has now “disappeared” from the neighbors if this is what you want and odors now are having to pass through the trees, slowing their progression into the landscape.
We do recommend setting the Austrees or outside row at least 80 ft from the building so snow will not drop on the building in a blizzard (see below). Also consider using 1 or more rows of evergreens on the inside of the Austrees for more long term snow, and wind protection and odor control.
Above is a row of Austrees only 45 ft from the hog building which is too close if you have several blizzards, the snow can drift on the roof and possibly cause problems. The above picture shows an 8″snowfall with 40 MPH, think what would happen if we got several more snowstorms. Austrees work great as a snow fence but keep outside row at least 80 ft from building, 100 ft is better.
The picture above is of Ryan Reed (left) of Ottumwa, Iowa, and his tree planting around his hog buildings that we helped design and supplied the trees for. With their planting of trees and other things Ryan and Lana have done they were awarded the 2012 Pork Industry Environmental Stewards award. Click on the below link to see pictures, article and video on what they have done to deserve this honor of a pork producer. Aerial picture shown below.
http://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/environment/wooded-wonderland-ryan-and-lana-reed-are-2012-pork-industry-environmental-stewards
Click the link below to view a document about “Using Windbreaks to Reduce Odors Associated with Livestock Production Facilities”https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/idpmstn6111.pdf