Kisalföld Forestry Company

Agriculture is one of its secondary activities, mainly in meadow and wild land cultivation. Intercropping was the result of past ownership. It is primarily intended to provide "access to land" for farm workers, who have been able to produce their own products while also carrying out afforestation.

• Maize production as intercrop has a positive effect on the development of the afforestation with poplar, and harvesting yields corn cob, which is utilized in winter foraging.

Intercropping of forest plantations was a cultivation method used in the past. The set of operations evolved over time, adapting to the opportunities. As a result, an adopted, partially mechanized form is used today. The main competences are forestry and agricultural knowledge. Having the appropriate machinery is also necessary. The absence of any of these will undermine the success or even the realization of such land management. Creativity and flexible problem solving ability, sense for logistics. Is recommended. Description of used technics during establishing of agroforestry systems Each year farmers select a final cutting area with a suitable production site, the soil of which can be brought to a state suitable for sowing maize (stump drilling, trenching, smoothing, cutting waste and root removal). Poplar rooted cuttings (size "A" or sapling) - usually Pannonia poplar clones - are planted. Afforestation is carried out with a planter mounted on a crawler machine. The row spacing is 4 m, while spacing within the tree rows is 2 m. The row spacing is then followed by 4 rows of hybrid maize with a tractor-mounted planter at a conventional 75 cm row spacing. Before sowing corn, the get fenced with spot welded panel nets (to protect against wild damage). Threats/Challenges

• Because of sowing in forest area, it requires significant preparatory work.
• The game population is large, so it is difficult to defend the plants even with a fence.
• The mechanization of crop harvesting is not yet solved, they are struggling with manual labor shortages.

Through multipurpose use of the territory, we are pursuing two profitable activities in one area at the same time, resulting in positive effects on each other. Besides, since we have been engaged in agroforestry, we are well aware of the increase in biodiversity.

A large game population make neither forestry nor agricultural production, and therefore no combination of these, safe.

Future plans

The company plans to increase this type of land utilization as much as they can. However, this requires  innovations in the mechanization of the harvest.

„Get started and experiment, but before doing so, you should acquire the necessary knowledge to minimize the financial risk.”