Canopy Farm Management

🦌UPGRADE YOUR FOOD PLOT🦌
Plant now & hunt better for years to come.
Want to create the ultimate deer magnet? Skip the generic chestnut and persimmon seedlings and plant trees that actually deliver results. The best food plots start with the best genetics. Our trees come from the Midwest's best.

We love getting updates from our customers! Have you ordered trees from us? We would love to hear how they are doing!

Canopy Nursery Spring 2026 Nursery Orders Are Open!
This year we have a wide selection! Asian Pears, Peaches, Heartnuts, Elderberries, Honeyberries, Gooseberries, Serviceberries, Jostaberries, Bush Cherries, Grafted and Seedling Persimmons, and Willow Cuttings. Use Code EARLYBIRD for free shipping.

Tom Wahl and Kathy Dice of Red Fern Farm are pioneers of the chestnut industry. Canopy works closely with Red Fern to source the highest quality chestnut seed from their orchard to grow in our nursery. We will be launching sales for our Spring 2026 nursery sales in one week on September 1st!

Afforestation is the process of establishing a forest where there wasn't one. As part of our mission to support biodiverse ecosystems, we work with gov agencies and conservation groups to rebuild forest on unproductive ag lands through afforestation. Seeing wildlife while we work is a bonus!

Two under-appreciated groups of pollinators are beetles + flies. These insects are the primary pollinators for chestnuts and pawpaws. Beetles+flies have shorter flight radii than bees, so including pollinator habitat close to production orchards (within 300 feet) for these crops is critical.

Twilight Tailgate with the Trees: End of Summer Celebration
August 28 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Urbana Illinois


Only one Tailgate at the farm this year! Let’s celebrate the start of the school year with a shin-dig at the Savanna Institute Demo Farm! Come see one of our Canopy management sites.

Even in self pollinating cultivars, black currants depend on insect pollinators such as bumblebees, sweat bees, mason bees, and hover flies. Currants bloom early in the growing season, often too early for honey bees, so farmers rely on native bees for optimal fruit set.

Pollinators are incredibly important to us. What steps do we take to help conserve and build resilience for pollinators on our clients' farms? Because pollinators are crucial for tree crops, we highly recommend that all of our clients maintain at least 10 percent of their farm in pollinator habitat.

May 16th, Illinois experienced a dust storm. Drought, the windiest time of year and bare farm land contributed. For us, this event highlights the importance of sustainable practices including tree windbreaks, prairie strips, and cover cropping. Let’s remember lessons we learned from the Dust Bowl.

Our team utilizes drone photography and mapping to take precision to the next level. When designing a project on a farm, we use drone maps to have top notch accuracy. We also use drones to scout clients' fields for things like pest pressure, plant health, flooding, and irrigation leaks.

This spring, we planted 16,000 trees at one site! The client converted row crop acres to a mixture of oak, persimmon, chestnut, pear, and crabapple with the goal of attracting and feeding trophy whitetail deer. The groundcover alternates between grassy bedding areas and food plots for grazing.

Back in May, our team planted 100,000 chestnut seeds at our nursery. In November, the trees will be dug and prepared for nursery customers. All of our chestnuts are from genetic lines that provide high quality chestnuts with large yields. Perfect for culinary use, silvopasture, and whitetail deer!

Twilight Tailgate with the Trees: End of Summer Celebration
August 28 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Urbana Illinois
Only one Tailgate at the farm this year! Let’s celebrate the start of the school year with a shin-dig at the Savanna Institute Demo Farm!

Heartnuts, or Japanese walnuts, are delicious and fairly easy to grow in the Midwest. They tolerate a range of soil types common and can be successful where more selective crop species can't grow. They are also cold hardy, growing in zones down to 4b. The nuts have distinctive heart-shaped shells.

Willow are excellent additions to windbreaks. They grow fast, are flexible so they can tolerate high wind, and their shrubby form helps stop drift of pesticides and snow. We show one of the best examples we have seen yet with drift damage on one half of the willow windbreak.

PAWPAW FOR SALE!
Potted pawpaws are available for **PICKUP ONLY** in August in Champaign, IL or Spring Green, WI for late summer planting (select location at check out). We will contact you once your trees are ready to schedule a pickup time.

Seed Source
Red Fern Farm and Jerry Lehman's orchard

Graham Cassellius of Cassell Hollow Farm will host this field day focused on agritourism and hazelnuts. Topics covered will include hazelnut harvesting and processing, plant propagation in the high tunnel, and flower arranging. Register on Savanna Institute's website.

We introduce you to our client engagement coordinator, Carolyn Pettit. She's the first person people meet when contacting Canopy. She connects people with the resources they need to make their agroforestry dreams come true. She loves her job, she gets to talk to people all day about trees.

This year we planted over 200,000 trees for clients in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. We also established 100 acres of pollinator friendly cover crops and prairie. We have a range of job types including: conservation, windbreaks, riparian buffers, silvopasture, hunting properties, and orchards.

Thank you! We are excited to be here 🤗

Windbreaks are a great addition to any property. They help protect land from events like drought, water erosion, pesticide drift, and wind. Fast growing species like willow and poplar provide protection within 3-5 years. Not to mention the beauty of trees, pollinator habitat and bird watching!

Pawpaws are the largest native North American fruit. Pawpaws tolerate more shade than many other tree crops, so they can be planted as an understory crop. Our Pawpaw seedlings come from from Red Fern Farm's improved varieties that will fruit in 5b.
Potted stock for sale through our nursery website.

The American Persimmon has something for everybody. Graziers plant persimmons as a fodder crop. Hunters say persimmons are a magnet for deer. And home cooks seek out the pulp for super moist and nutritious baked goods. Even the leaves can be used for an herbal tea. What can’t this tree do?