UNHIDE Agroforestry booklet 2025.09.22 - Flipbook - Page 44
Vadakste Biodiversity Forest: Edible landscape, Latvia
VADAKSTE BIODIVERSITY FOREST in southwestern Latvia is a partially fenced 50 hectares,
mostly forested area in flat terrain, on calcareous
clay soils, surrounded by state-owned spruce monoculture plantations. Agnis Graudulis, a trained
horticulturist and forester, began implementing
his vision for his land in 2019; a seed source for
biodiversity and trees for food and timber.
The ambition is to restore the vegetation to its
original deciduous forest character in combination with adopting the concept of PNV, “potentially natural vegetation”, in terms of reintroducing
native vegetation and assisting the migration of
new vegetation, as an increasingly warmer climate
opens up new possibilities for planting nut trees.
The land contains several systems of different
Linden (Tilia cordata).
types of vegetation.
PLANTING TREES
IN THE FOREST
Initially, what caught our interest from a Swedish perspective, to the point that we made a film
about it, was several thinned out stands of pioneer grey alder (Alnus incana) grown on arable
land with planted cherry (Prunus avium), linden
(Tilia cordata), maple (Acer platanoides), walnut
(Juglans nigra), sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa),
larch (Larix decidua), wild pear (Pyrus pyraster),
wild apple, (Malus sylvestris), beech (Fagus sylvatica), oak (Quercus petrea, palustris, rubra, robur)
