Silvopasture Project at the University of Rhode Island
An exciting new silvopasture project is underway at the University of Rhode Island’s Peckham Farm in Kingston, Rhode Island! Peckham Farm is located on the south side of route 138 opposite the entrance to the URI Boss Ice Arena and is home to a variety of livestock including beef cattle, sheep, goats, swine, and poultry. The farm and animals are used for undergraduate education and faculty/graduate student research. Peckham Farm encompasses approximately 346 acres. Most of the property is forested (183 acres), while 44% (152 acres) is agriculture/grassland.
Approximately 52 additional acres of land became available for livestock when a long-term lease to a sod farm ended in 2022. When the lease ended, the fields were left bare. Soil from the land began to erode, washing into neighboring fields and an important adjoining watershed. Unfortunately, this coincided with a very wet spring and the site experienced extreme flooding. But this flooding event sparked an idea for farm manager Coleman Replogle to restore the site to reduce overland water flow, improve water retention, and increase biodiversity by seeding the parcel and planting trees all while providing a healthy pasture with shade and native fodder for livestock. In addition, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has called for the planting of a woody buffer along the southern boundary in addition to a silvopasture. These trees will create a buffer between the pasture and neighboring properties, improve wildlife habitat and will also help to reduce runoff from the field.
The URI Peckham Farm partnered with Professor Laura Meyerson in the Department of Natural Resources Science at URI, her PhD student Don Ruggieri, and the community building organization Why Regenerative to begin implementing the silvopasture and buffer zone plantings. With generous support from TreePro, we were able to conduct two plantings at the site, 280 native oaks and American chestnuts in the fall of 2024 with community volunteers, teachers and students from Rocky Hill Country Day School in East Greenwich, RI, and with more than 30 URI students from Professor Meyerson’s Restoration Ecology class. This project has the potential to enhance land management practices, increase carbon sequestration, improve soil health, increase biodiversity and build stronger relationships with neighbors and the surrounding community.
This blog post and photos were provided by Laura Meyerson, Donald Ruggieri, and Coleman Replogle of the University of Rhode Island as well as Cortlandt Meyerson from WhyRegenerative.
