Planting Trees Today for Tomorrow’s Farms: New guidance, what a "Mast Year" is and why that matters in 2025

Tree planting in England has reached its highest rate in over two decades, with 7,164 hectares planted in 2024/2025, equating to around 10.4 million trees. These impressive figures are needed if the Government is to have a chance of meeting its ambitious targets. The Government aims to increase the canopy cover of woodlands and trees outside woodlands to 16.5% by 2050, as part of its strategy to combat climate change and achieve net zero carbon emissions.

This means that, even with significant numbers of trees planted, growers and landowners are being actively encouraged to plant more. As new guides and incentives emerge to assist with tree planting on farms, nature itself offers a timely nudge: 2025 is shaping up to be a mast year. This natural phenomenon could make it an ideal moment for landowners and farmers to act.

In this edition of Field Notes, we delve into both the policy side (the call to plant more trees) and the ecological side (what a mast year means) and reflect on how the two interact.

Why Landowners and Farmers Are Urged to Plant More Trees

Tree planting is a critical component of the Government’s plan to combat climate change and achieve net zero carbon emissions. This is facilitated, incentivised, and encouraged through policy and funding. The record-breaking tree planting efforts of the last year are impressive but may still not suffice to meet the Government’s ambitious targets.

Recently, a new tree-planting guide for farmers and foresters has gained national backing, offering clearer direction on integrating trees into farm systems.

What the Guide Offers

The guide supports farmers and landowners working with England’s Community Forests. England’s Community Forests can help provide guidance on tree species suited to agroforestry systems or tailored to different soils, climates, and farm types, with separate guidelines identifying 33 tree species well suited to planting on farmland. England’s Community Forests help farmers decide which trees to plant where – for shading, shelter for livestock, soil improvement, timber, or nut production. It highlights the on-farm benefits of trees, including safeguarding soil health, carbon sequestration, enhancing biodiversity, diversifying farm income, providing shelter, and improving resilience to climate shocks.

Support, Funding, and Incentives

The guide is backed by government bodies (e.g., Defra) and landowner and farming organisations (such as the CLA and NFU), signalling strong support across the spectrum of stakeholders. Farmers and landowners may have access to grants and schemes to help cover establishment and maintenance costs. Increasing tree cover on farms is being framed not just as an add-on but as a way to make agriculture more sustainable, resilient, and ecologically integrated.

Challenges and Farmer Perspectives

Planting trees on farmland is not without trade-offs or concerns. A recent guide from Forest Research titled “Expanding tree cover on farms: what matters to farmers?” highlights that farmers’ decisions are shaped by more than just financial incentives. Values, risk, practicality, and perceptions of land use all play a role.

Farmers and landowners may worry about lost cropping area, long lead times before trees deliver returns, maintenance, pests, disease, management complexity, and uncertainty of policy or funding continuity. Despite these concerns, the positive trends are compelling: institutional and advisory support is growing, and the argument for trees as a core component of resilient farming is gaining strength. The answer is likely to be a careful balancing act.

What is a Mast Year? And Why 2025 Might Be One?

“Mast years” occur every 5 to 10 years, though nature can surprise us. Mast years are when trees and shrubs produce an unusually abundant crop of berries, nuts, seeds, and fruit. This year, oak and beech trees especially seem to be producing abundant crops of acorns and beech nuts.

Definition & Mechanism

The term “mast” refers collectively to tree fruits, nuts, and seeds. In a mast year, certain species synchronously produce enormous seed crops, far exceeding what animals can eat. The current evolutionary theory is predator satiation: by overproducing seeds, trees flood the ecosystem so that seed predators cannot consume them all. Some seeds survive, germinate, and grow into new trees.

Producing a bumper crop is energetically expensive, so trees cycle through lower-output years before building up to a mast year. Weather plays a strong role in whether flowers mature into viable seeds. Importantly, mast years are often synchronized across wide areas.

Why it Matters for Farmers, Landowners, and Woodland Creation

If 2025 is indeed a mast year, there may be surplus natural regeneration potential. More acorns and nuts mean a greater natural seed bank, potentially more seedlings developing in hedgerows, wood edges, shelterbelts, or marginal land. Natural regeneration from existing woodlands may help fill gaps or supplement planting.

However, natural regeneration alone has limitations. Seed dispersal may not reach desired locations, and predation and competition might suppress seedlings. Without care, many seedlings will fail. Planting with intention remains essential but doing so in a mast year may mean working with nature’s rhythm.

Marrying the Two Ideas: Strategic Tree Planting in a Mast Year

Given the push for more trees and the natural impetus of a mast year, here’s how farmers and landowners might seize the moment:

Prioritise Planting in Key Zones

Focus on hedges, field margins, riparian strips, or buffer zones adjacent to woodland edges.

Choose Complementary Species

Mix natives, nitrogen fixers, fruit/nut trees, shrubs, and faster establishment species.

Prepare the Ground Early

Weed control, soil preparation, and protection are necessary.

Use Monitoring and Adaptive Management

Track which seedlings grow and where intervention is needed.

Leverage Funding Windows

Align timing with current grants.

Think Long Term

Trees planted today become part of a generational legacy.

A Compelling Moment for Change

The convergence of policy support and ecological rhythm presents a rare opportunity. Farmers have the guidance and incentive to plant more trees; nature is rolling out its own bumper seed crop; and the urgency around climate, biodiversity, and sustainable farming makes this a pivotal moment.

For those in the farming community, land management, or conservation spheres, 2025/2026 may be a year to lean into tree planting: planting with intention, but also in harmony with the woodland’s own cycles. We’re here every step of the way if you’re a landowner or farmer considering your options in a changing landscape and would like any support on the legal implications.

Field Notes is Charles Russell Speechlys’ weekly agricultural law blog, sharing plain-English insight into the legal and policy issues affecting agriculture, agricultural land and rural business life. From hints and tips on avoiding agricultural disputes, pitfalls to keep an eye out when planning for tenancy or family agri-business succession, to the latest agricultural legislative or policy changes and the most interesting farm-related court decisions, Field Notes makes the complex more understandable, always grounded in the realities of life on (and off) the land.

Field Notes comes out every Wednesday. Previous editions of Field Notes:

• Beyond Downton Abbey: the legal issues facing modern Landed Estates
• Agricultural Tenancies: Navigating Michaelmas and Anticipating Future Trends
• Unkept Promises: The Evolving Landscape for Proprietary Estoppel Post-Guest v Guest
• One Year On: Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 succession after the Agriculture Act 2020 reforms
• Cheltenham: Where Clarkson Meets Covenants