Food Forest Help Needed

[Rob From Sydney]

In a few months, after I plant my stonefruit/pomefruit orchard, I'll be planting a food forest, and I would love some help regarding a couple of things.

1: How should I space trees?
Mainly a curiosity with the overstory trees. I want enough space between tall trees so that they let some light in between them, but not too much space.

2: Which trees belong in the overstory and which ones belong in the understory?
I've worked out that Mangoes, Ingas, Pouterias, Avocadoes, Loquats, Casimiroas, Black Sapotes and Artocarpus are overstory trees, and that Acerolas, Eugenias, Plinias and Psidiums are understory trees.
I can't figure out what to do with Annonas, Longan/Lychee and Garcinias, how to arrange the shorter lived trees like Bananas, Papayas, and Tamarillos. Especially bananas - I just can't get my head around how to get them in.

To anyone who helps me, thank you. I'm just getting started with food forestry and would love your knowledge.

[Galatians522]

Lychee and Logan make big trees. I would consider them "overstory."

[Coconut Cream]

1. Microclimate overrides any other concern for me. The dry areas with best drainage get Avocado, Mamey Sapote, White Sapote and whatever trees you determine can't tolerate wet feet. Wetter areas with poorer drainage get Bananas, Sapodillas, Jaboticaba and Coconut. Mango is somewhere in between. Check the moisture levels in various areas and research which trees you want to plant do best in those conditions.

2. Overplant, both in density and quantity. Trees will die, some will grow bigger than expected, some will stay smaller than expected. It takes 5 - 10 years for spacing to become an issue and during that time you will learn a lot about what you want and change your mind many times. You will remove trees and relocate trees for many different reasons.

3. Consider the vertical shape of the tree and the openness of its canopy. Some Mamey trees and Avocado trees have a more open, skeletal limb structure that lets light through. Other trees are more like dense umbrellas (star fruit, black sapote). Coconuts grow straight up with a limited canopy. To some extent you won't know the exact habit until you plant it, and you can control it somewhat with pruning. Take advantage of the canopy shapes by putting a tall upright tree next to a low shrubby tree and packing them in tighter. A great example would be a seedling jackfruit that wants to go straight up next to (and very close to) a Mango tree that can be pruned and trained into a dense low shrub. Now you are maximizing the vertical space as well as the horizontal space.

4. Spacing only applies to permanent long-term trees like Avocado, Mango, Mamey, Sapodilla, Star Fruit, Custard Apple, White Sapote, Black Sapote. These are the high production trees for the future and you won't want to move them. I planted mine at 10 - 15 foot spacing, mostly around 12 feet. Anything else can be stuffed in between them, especially trees that fruit quickly because it's no big loss if you have to move a tree that fruits within a year or two (guava, Pigeon Pea, Papaya, Barbados Cherry, Loquat, Pitomba, Grumichama, COTRG etc).

5. I have temporary and permanent bananas. The permanent banana patch is in a low, wet area with taro root. The temporary banana plants provide early shade to the juvenile fruit trees, just don't plant them too close. Eventually you will dig out the temporary bananas and you don't want the corm to grow into the roots of your mango or avocado tree.

[K-Rimes]

I was going to say some stuff, but basically it's the same as what Coconut Cream said, so just +1 on that. The only modification I would make is that you should do your best to plant in rows where possible, with at least enough room for a small vehicle to drive thru. At the very least, a garden cart / wheelbarrow. I made the mistake of not thinking about this at my old place and it became really annoying to mulch and stuff, having to steer the wheelbarrow around like a slalom course.

[RS]

Great advice so far. Depending on the size of your site, creating rows/edges can increase the amount of growing space especially on a smaller site.

One example of a small 1/10 acre food forest is here in case helpful: https://www.edulisdesigns.com/portfolio/naples-food-forest

[Rob From Sydney]

Thank you! I've sure got a lot of stuff to digest! Here are my key takeaways so far:
1: Spacing only applies to large, permanent, overstory trees. Short understorey trees can just be stuffed in.
2: Overplant. Some trees will thrive, some will die, and some will be in the middle. You can always move trees and spacing only becomes problematic after 5-10 years.
3: Plant temporary trees to give plants shade as they grow. And you can always move them later on, just don't let them take over where they are.
4: "I spaced mostly 10-15 feet". Judging from just that nothing is too strict.

Now for some futher questions:
Make sure that you have paths/rows so you can move wheelbarrows and the like. I just saw the edulis design food forest, and there were lots of paths and the whole forest was very open to the sun. I have always imagined walking through a food forest like a rain forest; trees overhead as you walk through. I guess I need to rethink that, but how open should a food forest be? How big should the gaps be between overstory trees like Sapotes, Avos, Mangoes, etc, to let light into the understorey?

Different fruit trees come in different shapes, and that is important...
How should I fit in trees all the odd trees, like permanent bananas that form large clusters, or the dense annonas that grow kind of like spheres, the slow growing lychees/longans (that grow tall but seem to like the shade, if I'm right), and the garcinias and papayas that grow thin but tall?

Thanks for all the help so far, I can't wait for more answers! 

[Finca La Isla]

At my place what we call a food forest is really a mixed orchard mostly. There are only a few species that are really happy as understory trees. In my case that starts with cacao and salak. I think that many garcinia are shade tolerant. If the large trees were planted at 30 meter spacing then I think it would be easier.
In my experience acerola needs full sun. It will grow fine with partial shade but produces way better in lots of sun.
Peter

[K-Rimes]

How big should the gaps be between overstory trees like Sapotes, Avos, Mangoes, etc, to let light into the understorey?

How big is your planting area? It will determine how big your spacing should be. A good guy to ask this question to is Skhan on the forum, who had a really packed in smaller yard, and had removed many trees over the years to dial it in.

In my case, I maybe had .25 of an acre DENSELY planted, and I really regretted how haphazardly I put stuff in the ground. I didn't even think about it. I just put in the ground. At first I had things mostly in a row, but then I had more plants than space and started to stuff them in. It became a real problem, even with 6' spacing for understory plants, which I also agree with Peter aren't really a thing, it was an issue.

Re: understory, I have my big sabara in dappled shade from sunrise till about 11am then it gets direct sun till about 2pm. This was enough for it to fruit and grow well, but I don't think it would produce at all if it were in dappled shade all day, so if you were thinking to plant all around the bottom of what will turn into large trees, you'll probably have a good few years of production til they get fully shaded then not as much.

[RS]

Make sure that you have paths/rows so you can move wheelbarrows and the like. I just saw the edulis design food forest, and there were lots of paths and the whole forest was very open to the sun. I have always imagined walking through a food forest like a rain forest; trees overhead as you walk through. I guess I need to rethink that, but how open should a food forest be?

Yeah it looks open to the sun because the overstory trees (mango, avocado, etc) haven't grown in yet, which can take 10+ years. I'd guess the spacing is about 15'-20' for those larger trees, but if you won't be pruning you may want more like 20-25'+ spacing.

Paths/rows are great for sun/airflow/maintenance access. In humid areas, airflow is really important to prevent mold/disease. Plus it's really difficult to wade through a sea of vegetation when trying to pick fruit.

I've also heard garcinias, starfruit, some annonas, black sapote and silas wood sapodilla can handle some shade. Bananas and papayas can go anywhere until the overstory grows out, but bananas like moisture and papayas don't like much moisture in my experience.

A general rule of thumb is to place taller trees to the north (or south down under) to limit shading and maximize available sunlight, but this is more critical for smaller sites with less space. And of course don't forget to plant pollinators and nitrogen fixers.

[Galatians522]

I think part of it depends on how long you want to grow them before you begin pruning. When Central Florida was entirely a farm community and land was cheap because they hadn't invented air conditioning, lychee and citrus were planted 40' x 40'. Given time, the trees would fill that entire space (particularly lychee). They would also grow about that tall and the tops of the trees would consequently be almost impossible to harvest.

After the 1980s they planted on 25' x 15' spacing. Lychee planted 18' x 18' will have full canopy cover in 15-20 years here. 40' x 40' would take about 40 years from what I have seen. Its about 1' a year once they get going (some varieties like Emperor are slower growers).

I agree with what K-Rimes said about needing space to move around. I think its better to squeeze trees in the row rather than squeezing the rows. For example 20' x 15' gives you more space to move down the rows and more trees per acre than 18' x 18'.

[Coconut Cream]

In my case, I maybe had .25 of an acre DENSELY planted, and I really regretted how haphazardly I put stuff in the ground. I didn't even think about it. I just put in the ground.

I applaud you for just planting stuff, and trying to figure out what you want. I've pulled out and replaced at least 75% of what I originally planted and I just see that as the cost of an education. When you learn to cook, the first few times you make a dish, you almost ruin it. By the 5th or 6th try you are starting to figure out what you want and how to pull the strings to make that work. Nobody plants a perfect food forest on the first try, it's just not possible.

A food forest is an open-ended process and very personal. What distinguishes a food forest from a straight up orchard (to my understanding) is using all the space you can for as much of the time you can. And that means planting early "pioneer" species that won't be there down the road. But you get production from all of the land starting from day 1 while building the soil and microclimate in the process. I don't have the patience to leave empty space for something that might grow into that space 10 years from now. I also love the look of a dense planting, I want a lush tropical jungle that is 15 degrees cooler than my neighbor's lawn but full of color, fruit, butterflies and life.

Rob, the anchor tree spacing you choose will depend on how much space you have and how many anchor trees you think you need. I have a small lot so I used very tight spacing with plans to just prune more and make adjustments as needed. I can't afford to waste a full-size slot on a Guava or Loquat or Papaya so those trees have to compete in the margins. I have one main winding pathway down the center of the jungle. I also selected dwarf/compact cultivars where possible.

Make sure you plan for plenty of groundcover, support plants, grasses, flowers, pollinators and vining crops to fill up the ground around the anchor trees and build the soil. Here are a few videos to give you inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSBp2_keAz0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpGzYlkIB1Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daSb5or7Sc0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRC3aJG9PM8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaMdJe7hL3M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26VXsWiejg0