Description

Free Shipping!
3 – Hybrid Poplar 1′-2′ 

3 – Hybrid Willow 1′-2′

3 – White Mulberry 1′-2′

I can’t extol the virtues of fodder trees for sustainable living enough. If you like the idea of never paying for livestock feed ever again, start planting fodder trees yesterday! This is a package that gets you started on the journey to self sufficiency with regards to livestock feed. These trees are easy to propagate and will enable you to start your fodder food forest. The sky is the limit for how many fodder trees you can propagate from these starts. All it takes is time and a little knowhow. This package best grown in zones 4-9. Conservation Grade

All trees are sold as bare root trees 1′-2′ You can expect slow to no growth for the first year, slow to moderate growth the second year, and explosive growth the third year. Old saying “First they sleep, then they creep, then they leap”. Please mulch well (4″ of mulch minimum), use slow release fertilizer and keep soil moist.

If you take care of them, they grow FAST! We planted 800 of these same three tree species the spring of 2022 and despite a drought and using a sprinkler to water, they all ended up between 8′ and 12′ tall in their first year. So fertilize and water well if you want to have similar results!

Hybrid Poplar – Populus x sp.

USDA 3-9
Grows like a weed and handles being coppiced and pollarded exceedingly well. Great results feeding rabbits, goats, and sheep a diet of Hybrid Poplar, almost equivalent to alfalfa in most respects. All around best fodder leaf for the broadest range of the USA. Also because of it’s rapid growth and high protein content, that means it has great nitrogen available to build healthy soil. Just chop it up and lay it on the soil to rot as mulch! Bare root tree Conservation Grade 1′-2′.

Hybrid Willow – Salix x sp.

USDA 3-10
Extremely fast growing willow hybrid. Widely adaptable to most soil types and conditions. Does best in moist to wet environments, tolerates seasonal flooding. Excellent root net enables very effective erosion control. Fantastic high protein and fast growing fodder tree. Propagate with cuttings year round. Bare root tree Conservation Grade 1′-2′.

White Mulberry – Morus alba

USDA 4-9 
Excellent fodder species for herbivores and ruminants. High protein leaf that retains protein late into the season. Top in fodder quality this tree is a powerhouse of nutrition and hardiness. When it comes to digestibility and tasting great, this is at the top of the chart. Animals of all kinds adore a meal of fresh or dried white mulberry. Used all over the world as a leafy cooked green with the young shoots and leaves. Grows slowest of the three fodder species in this pack, but has the most digestibility and palatability. Bare root tree Conservation Grade 1′-2′.