Farmers have long recognised the value of trees on farm and much of the area planted to trees annually across Australia is undertaken by farmers, often at their own expense.

Farm trees provide a number of production benefits, such as shelter for livestock, as well as significant environmental benefits to the community.

At a recent conference in Albury, researchers, farmers, catchment managers and advisers met to examine the progress that has been made in trees on-farm and discuss some of the emerging research.

It proved to be an interesting conference, with some of the existing thinking being challenged by some innovative research.

Some research suggests that for tree corridors to become fully functioning habitats, at least for some species, they may need to be considerably wider than current practice, perhaps up to 400 metres wide.

Narrow corridors could potentially impede the movement of territorial species while being of insufficient size to allow for breeding.

In these circumstances they could act as a drain on the populations in the larger blocks they are trying to connect.

On the other hand, single paddock trees have often been considered less useful than corridors for movement of some species.

This may not always be the case and in some circumstances appropriately spaced paddock trees may be a better way of connecting larger blocks of trees.

Either of these scenarios have implications for agricultural production and how trees are managed.

Clearly, there is still much to be understood and the research is in its early days. Often the main beneficiary of environmental practices on agricultural land is the wider community.

It is important that farmers remain actively involved in debate and continue to support research into less production orientated activities such as trees onfarm to ensure that both government policy and onfarm actions are supported by sound science.