The development of a new course, Agroforestry for the Southeastern U.S., and a video conferencing version of an existing course, Forests for the Future, are funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) higher education grant of more than $241,000.

CSTAF Assistant Director Michael Bannister, who is designing Agroforestry for the Southeastern U.S., will teach the course beginning the fall semester for natural resource undergraduate students at UF/IFAS and universities in the Southeast.

The course, an overview of agroforestry practices in the Southeast, provides students with tools to work as professionals and to identify opportunities for their clients in agroforestry.

CSTAF collaborators at other universities will contribute content material to the course. Dennis Shannon at Auburn University is preparing the technical content of the course.

A component of the course is a series CD-ROMs prepared by Shannon that includes videotaped interviews with researchers and landowners practicing agroforestry.

In a field exercise, students will visit researchers and landowners in their region, conduct field interviews and prepare a report on their experiences. They will then visit the county extension office to share their observations. Students will learn how the Southeastern Agroforestry Decision Support System (SEADSS) developed by CSTAF, can help landowners select appropriate agroforestry systems.

Carl Jordan at the University of Georgia will provide information on alleycropping and also will conduct a short course on agroforestry for University of Georgia undergraduates in May.

Forests for the Future, taught by Taylor Stein in the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, will be offered for the first time via videoconferencing.

The videoconferencing will make the course available to undergraduate students in a variety of disciplines on and off campus.

The course covers an array of topics including the production of diverse products from forests, the role of fires in forest management, timber harvesting practices, forests and global climate change, genetically modified forest organisms, and tropical forestry.

Stein, assistant professor in the SFRC, is lead instructor, with six other SFRC faculty teaching sections of the course.

The grant also supports an agroforestry demonstration site at the Austin Carey Memorial Forest that will be a component of agroforestry courses at UF/IFAS.

The 3.5 acres in University of Florida’s forest north of campus is planted in slash pine with alleys planted in agroforestry crops, including bahiagrass, goldenmane tickseed and shiitake mushrooms.