Pine Straw — A Profitable Agroforestry Enterprise

Report Introduction: The foundation of agroforestry is putting trees to work in conservation and production systems for farms, forests, ranches and communities. Agroforestry systems using Working Trees that produce pine straw can provide supplemental income to woodland owners during years when no trees are being harvested or if used in a silvopasture system during the establishment years before livestock are introduced. If pine straw production is incorporated into an active silvopasture system, careful management of the livestock is critical. Pine straw (fresh, un-decomposed pine needles that have fallen on the forest floor) is a valuable woodland resource in the southern pine region of the United States. Most pine straw markets are in the southern U.S. with a slow but steady expansion northward and westward. Pine straw has been a popular landscape ground cover throughout the South since the 1980s. It is one of the most widely used mulches in that area for projects of any size, from residential flowerbeds to industrial complexes and highway landscapes.