The Arbor Day Farm Fuelwood Plantation

While they grow, these hybrid poplars provide the many benefits of trees, from anchoring the soil to sequestering carbon and producing oxygen. Once harvested, they provide a clean, renewable energy source.

Hybrid poplars, thornless honeylocusts, and silver maples grow in graceful rows at Arbor Day Farm’s Fuelwood Plantation. But these trees add more than their beauty and shade to visitors at Arbor Day Farm. They’re also demonstrating vital principles of conservation and environmental stewardship.

The first trees were planted in 1992, with the Farm’s first harvest coming in 1999. This plantation is the first of five fuelwood sites on Arbor Day Farm. Since the poplars proved to be the most rapidly growing trees and have exceeded the biomass produced by the other species, they have become the tree of choice for the other sites. These fuelwood trees provide even more biomass, since they can be “coppiced” within 6 or 7 years (that is, they can be cut about 4 inches above the ground, with the harvested wood chipped to use as fuel in Lied Conference Center at Arbor Day Farm. These trees will then resprout from the stumps and can be harvested again in as little as six years).

After they are harvested by “coppicing,” these trees will resprout from their stumps, producing a new crop of trees for biomass energy in as little as 6 years.

Principles you can use…

Many crops can produce useable biomass energy, and such crops are often ideal for land not suitable for more traditional cash crops. In fact, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that up to 36 million acres of land considered unfit to grow food could be used to grow energy crops. Many small landowners may own property well suited for growing energy crops. Small plots are often ideal for raising fuelwood trees for home fireplaces and wood-burning stoves.

To learn more…

Visitors to Arbor Day Farm can learn more at the Fuelwood Energy Plant Visitors Gallery, located at the west end of Lied Conference Center. The Gallery overlooks the fuelwood energy plant and showcases the unique energy operation that provides both heating and cooling through the burning of biomass fuel.

Web sites:

More information on fuelwood plantations, biomass energy, and conservation principles can be found at the following Web sites:

The National Arbor Day Foundation Tree Store - to learn where you can order hybrid poplars and other trees

Our Farm Fuelwood section - to learn more about biomass and fuelwood trees

The Natural Renewable Energy Laboratory - for information on the U.S. Department of Energy’s research and development on renewable energy

U.S.D.A. National Agroforestry Center - for information on agroforestry, biomass energy, and conservation

The Department of Energy – for information on biomass and other renewable energy sources

The Biomass Energy Foundation – for information on biomass fuels