Lill-Nägels Agroforestry Pilot Project
The Lill-Nägels Agroforestry Pilot Project (LillNAP) is implementing a successional silvoarable agroforestry system to remediate degraded agricultural soil primarily through the monitoring and management of biodiversity. Our project launched in late June 2022 in Kirkkonummi, Finland, on a worn out agricultural field. In 2025 we withdrew from the original top priority, which was to see whether diverse polycultures could bioremediate soil with limited outside inputs to the soil (except for irrigation water). This decision was based on the direct evidence from the plants and soil that such a limitation – which excluded the use of agricultural lime – was severely hampering the whole site's progress.
Key site features, which are described in detail under the Field Information -> Site Design subpage, are:
- Tree Lines: 2 meter wide planting beds, measuring just under 300 linear meters (winter 2024-2025) with another ±120 meters planned, covering 784 square meters or 10% of the surface area of the plot
- 4 of 6 planned tree lines have been planted, currently featuring:
- 58 fruit trees (cherry, plum, pear, apple, peach
- 96 fruiting bushes (black, white, red currants, gooseberries, apricots, and black elderberry)
- 20 cold-hardy grape cultivars
- 150 rhubarb crowns
- More than 300 willow, oak, maple, ash, rowan, and other service/biomass trees
- Garlic and a few other vegetables as selected early succession cash crops have been phased out as planned by 2026
- 4 of 6 planned tree lines have been planted, currently featuring:
- Alleys: 4 x 12 meter wide alleys, covering 3 318 square meters or 42% of the plot
- Trees managed for pedestrian orchard allow plenty of light into the alleys
- 12 meter wide alleys accommodate 3 or 4 meter wide implements as well as a 12 meter boom sprayer for foliar applications of nutrients, biostimulants, biofertilizers etc
- Alleys will see crop associations (polycultures, multi-species mixes) using strip cropping
- Margins: headlands measuring 16 meters accommodate mechanization of alley work; margins also include rocky outcrops and staging ground, covering 3 842 square meters. The margins are much larger than usual for an agroforestry system in order to simplify the crop rotation in the alleys with strip cropping.
- Margins are planted and managed for multi-species meadow habitat, providing an important haven for beneficial organisms in particular insects
- Margins can also be mown and raked for on-site biomass production to provide additional mulching material for tree lines
- These areas have sub-standard soil formation and are prone to compaction and disturbance from the mechanized working of alleys
We wish to use this microsite to share the process of design, implementation, and management.
For the period 2024-2026, the project is managed as the third work package of the Agroforestry i Nyland project.
Photo credit: Johan Ljungqvist, Multifoto Ab Oy, June 14th, 2024
Website Arrangement
This website has been laid out so that you can explore the project's conceptual background, the analysis that went into the site's design, in depth discussion about the design & management concepts, as well as follow current developments. I've created a timeline to share important milestones which are tagged with location and topic information to help you find what you are interested in. In addition, there is an "Alternative Choices" timeline that posits other ways to implement the same practice with attention being paid to mechanization. You can track the site's journey through data as well by looking at the multifaceted soil analyses and plant samples we make available as the project progresses.
If you wish to return to this home page, click the Novia Logo at the top left corner of each page.
Note: The website is still under development and will take time to be fully functional. You may find text without hyperlinks and/or references to articles that are not yet available. That said, as soon as a subsection of the website is working well enough, you can begin to explore the topic by following the links provided in the table below:
Project Funding
The project was originally funded by Stiftelsen Finlandssvenska Jordfonden and Novia UAS from 6.2022-12.2022. LillNAP has received additional funding from Uusimaa's Centre for Economic Development, Transport, and the Environment (ELY-Keskus), Jordfonden, and Novia UAS for the calendar year of 2023.
From 2024-2026, this project is funded through the "Agroforestry in Nyland" development project. The project site is NylAF's Work Package 3. Funded by Uusimaa's Centre for Economic Development, Transport, and the Environment (ELY-Keskus), Svenska kulturfonden, Stiftelsen Finlandssvenska Jordfonden, and Novia UAS for the project period of 2024-2026.
