Wakelyns Agroforestry
Rows of trees and open crop alleys: a Suffolk farm showing that agroforestry has more than one shape.
Botanical illustration—not a photograph of this project.
Wakelyns in Suffolk uses tree rows and crop alleys established from 1994. Its operator documents fruit and timber trees alongside coppiced willow and hazel, with different spacings and cutting cycles. Explore the farm’s agroforestry account.
The idea to borrow
Sometimes the space between trees is the point. Alley cropping deliberately leaves room for other production. That is a useful counterweight to the idea that a food-growing landscape should be packed with as many layers as possible.
Follow the research trail
Wakelyns links to its collaboration with the Organic Research Centre and detailed research material. Read the methods and the particular outcomes studied before generalizing. A working example can inspire a design without proving that every combination of tree and crop will produce the same result.
Questions for your own patch
How much light reaches the crop as trees grow? Can people or equipment get in? What will be pruned or coppiced, and when? Different outputs can share a site, but each still needs a route from planting to harvest.
This is an agroforestry farm rather than a small backyard food forest. Check current visiting arrangements directly; the transferable lesson is thoughtful space, not a scale model of the whole farm.