INVEST
PLANT
SOFTWOODS
HARDWOODS
CALCULATORS
RESOURCES
PROGRAMS
Softwoods
Learn More
Windbreaks, also called shelterbelts, are belts of trees and shrubs planted in one or more rows to slow the wind, protect soil, crops, livestock and buildings, and create a more stable micro-climate. Properly designed windbreaks form a vegetative ladder that lifts and deflects wind upward, so that by the time air reaches your fields or farmyard it is moving slower and doing far less damage.
Historically, poorly protected farmland in the North American Great Plains contributed to the “dirty thirties” Dust Bowl, where unprotected topsoil was stripped away by strong winds. Millions of trees were later planted in farm shelterbelts to reduce wind erosion, trap snow and protect crops. Today, large-scale windbreaks such as Africa’s planned “Great Green Wall” follow the same principle: tree belts slow encroaching desert, stabilize soil, and create corridors where crops, livestock and native ecosystems can recover.
A well-planned windbreak or shelterbelt will:
Use the Windbreak & Shelterbelt Calculator below to estimate how many trees you will need for each row in your design. Combine this tool with our Tree Spacing Calculator and Tree Carbon Calculator to plan a windbreak that protects your farm and builds long-term tree value at the same time.
Many agricultural regions experience prevailing winds that come from the same general direction most of the year. This is common on open plains, in mountain valleys, and along coastal agricultural zones in the U.S., Australia, Africa, China and elsewhere. In these areas it makes sense to design a windbreak that is oriented perpendicular to the prevailing wind and runs the entire length of the field or property line that needs protection.
To be effective, a windbreak must be both tall enough to provide a long downwind protection zone and porous enough to let some air through. A solid wall of trees or boards actually creates turbulence and strong eddies; an ideal windbreak lets about 40–60 % of the wind pass through, dropping overall wind speed without producing damaging gusts and swirls on the leeward side.
In temperate climates, using a mix of coniferous and deciduous trees provides year-round protection. Deciduous trees like poplar or walnut lose their leaves in winter but still provide some wind resistance with their branches, while evergreen conifers such as spruce, fir or pine maintain dense foliage and continue to protect livestock yards and buildings during cold months.
One classic example of a multi-row shelterbelt uses three distinct tree layers: tall, medium and low. This creates a vegetative “ramp” that gradually lifts and slows the wind.
Row 1 (Leeward, tall trees): Plant a row of tall, narrow trees such as Lombardy or Tower poplar spaced about 8 feet apart. These trees can reach 80–100 feet in height and form the final “lift” that carries wind up and over the protected area. The tight spacing closes gaps quickly and provides a high, narrow wind fence.
Row 2 (Middle, evergreen trees): Around 25 feet upwind from the first row, plant a double or triple row of evergreen trees such as Douglas fir or spruce. Trees are staggered in alternating rows so that the foliage of one row fills the gaps between trees in the next. This evergreen wall provides strong, year-round permeability—enough to slow the wind without creating a solid wall of resistance.
Row 3 (Windward, shrub layer): Another 25 feet upwind from the conifers, plant a row of shorter, flexible shrubs or willows. Willow whips bend and sway with the wind, creating a very effective “first lift” that takes the bite out of high-speed airflow at ground level. This low barrier begins the slowing process before the wind ever reaches the main conifer rows.
By the time the wind has passed through this three-stage system, its speed is greatly reduced. Over the first 10–15 times tree height downwind, crops and pastures experience significantly lower evapotranspiration, less lodging (crop blow-down), improved soil moisture retention and more comfortable conditions for grazing animals. In winter, the belt traps snow, building drifts where you want them and keeping laneways, yards and building entrances clearer.
Use this windbreak tree calculator to estimate how many tall trees you’ll need for the first row of your shelterbelt. This might be Lombardy poplar, hybrid poplar, fast-growing Paulownia, or another tall species suited to your climate and soil.
Not all farms experience a strong prevailing wind. In some regions, breezes shift direction throughout the day and across the seasons. In these cases, a single straight belt on one side of a field is less effective. Instead, you can design cross-plot windbreaks or perimeter shelterbelts that protect from all sides.
For cropland between 20 and 100 acres, a common design is a rectangular tree enclosure: three rows of trees planted around the entire perimeter of the field. The same tall–medium–short layering is used, but wrapped around all four sides. On larger blocks (100+ acres), several smaller rectangles can be placed side by side to create multiple protected compartments.
Commercial open-field forest nurseries and on-land fish farms often rely on networks of parallel cross-plot windbreaks. These belts keep seedling beds, ponds and raceways sheltered from desiccating winds and drifting snow, while still allowing machinery access along main lanes and harvest corridors.
The same planning used to design a windbreak can also be used to manage water. In wetter areas, a series of ditches and tree lines can help drain saturated soils and protect fields from flooding. In dryland and semi-arid regions, the approach is reversed: water is collected and stored.
Instead of a 60-foot-deep tree belt, you might excavate a 20-foot-wide by 10-foot-deep water collection trench along the edge of a field or following a contour. In extremely dry climates, the trench can be lined with a rubber or synthetic membrane to hold water longer. Trees and shrubs planted along both sides of the ditch benefit from increased moisture, while the tree roots and canopy help shade the water, reduce evaporation, and stabilize the banks.
Enterprising farmers can even treat these water breaks as small aquaculture systems. Provided water depth is adequate, hardy fish species can overwinter below the ice in cold climates, while the surrounding tree and shrub belts provide habitat for birds, pollinators and beneficial insects.
In areas where average wind speeds are less than about 20 miles per hour, windbreak design can be adapted to grow edible plants as well as trees. A “berry break” combines wind protection with food-producing shrubs and small trees.
Depending on your region, you might plant native species such as huckleberry, chokecherry, serviceberry and gooseberry, or commercial cultivars of blueberry, blackberry and raspberry. Fruit-bearing shrubs can be mixed with nitrogen-fixing species and hedge-forming trees to create a productive, wildlife-friendly shelterbelt that provides both protection and a harvest.
Windbreaks and shelterbelts are more than just protection from unpleasant weather; they are powerful climate-smart agriculture tools. Trees store carbon in their wood, roots and surrounding soil. Well-designed shelterbelts can capture several times more carbon per acre than the same number of trees scattered randomly across a landscape because:
Over time, a network of shelterbelts stitched across open farmland can function like a “carbon net” while also providing shade, beauty, wildlife habitat and higher resilience to drought and extreme weather.
The three calculators on this page help you determine how many trees or shrubs you’ll need for each layer of your shelterbelt design:
For the first calculator, enter the total length in feet of the property side or perimeter you want to protect and choose a spacing suited to the mature spread of your tall tree species. Narrow trees such as Lombardy poplar tolerate closer spacing than broad-crowned trees such as Paulownia or maple.
Use this calculator for the evergreen windbreak rows. In many designs, the second “row” is actually a triple staggered row of spruce, fir or pine to plug gaps and create a dense, year-round barrier.
Use these results to estimate carbon credits from your trees, to support forest carbon projects, or to understand the long-term climate value of planting trees on your land, farm, or urban property.
For the second-row calculator, again enter total length in feet and choose a spacing that matches your evergreen species. Remember that three staggered rows can often be planted at slightly wider in-row spacing because the staggered pattern closes wind gaps.
For the third-row shelterbelt calculator, you’ll typically be using shrub willow, dogwood, buffaloberry or other bush species that can be planted closer together. These low, flexible plants are your first line of defense against wind, snow and drifting soil.
Every shelterbelt, woodlot and tree plantation is a metric waiting to be measured. Use our free tree, wood and carbon calculators to plan, price and optimize your next planting.
Conventional row plantations often double-space softwoods at about 6 feet within the row for the initial planting, with the intention of thinning every second tree later for pole wood or pulp. Hardwoods that will be grown to sawlog size are usually not thinned as aggressively and are planted at wider spacing—typically 15–25 feet apart, depending on species and rotation length.
Row spacing is also critical. Machinery access for planting, tending and harvest requires clear lanes. Row spacing for softwood plantations often ranges between 20 and 25 feet, while large-crowned hardwoods such as oaks and maples may need 25–30 feet or more between rows to leave room for safe felling and skidding. Alternating species by row—maple in one row, oak in the next—helps diversify return on investment (ROI) and reduces the risk of a single pest or disease affecting the entire stand.
Mixing coniferous and deciduous trees in alternating rows further improves forest health and spreads market risk between sawlogs, poles, biomass and specialty products. Although a traditional row plantation can pack in more trees per acre than a spiral planting pattern, average tree growth rates are often slower due to competition and shading.
A Crop Circle spiral plantation arranges trees in a geometric spiral instead of straight rows. Even though fewer trees are planted per acre, the geometry improves light capture and air movement, increasing average tree growth by as much as 20 %. Faster growth means earlier harvests and quicker payback on establishment costs, which can more than offset the lower tree count per acre.
In spiral systems, spacing between trees along the spiral is similar to row plantation spacing, but the distance between spiral rings is set at around 25 feet for both softwoods and hardwoods. Species are intermingled along the spiral—for example: white pine, then sugar maple, then red oak, repeating in sequence. This spreads risk, improves soil health, and produces a more diverse mix of future products.
Timber in spiral plantations is usually hand harvested and carefully trucked out, which protects veneer and sawlog quality. Branches and non-merchantable material can be chipped for wood pellets or biochar, creating secondary revenue streams without compromising the main crop.
We have partnered with Growing to Give , a Washington State nonprofit, to create a land and tree partnership program that repurposes agricultural land into appreciating tree assets.
The program uses privately owned land to establish tree plantations and shelterbelts that benefit both the landowner and the environment. If you have 100 acres or more of flat, fallow farmland and would like to plant trees for windbreaks, carbon capture or long-term timber value, we would like to talk to you.
There are no costs to enter the program. You own the land and you own the trees we plant for free. There are no restrictions—you can sell or transfer the land and trees at any time.
You can also partner with us by donating land to a long-term tree planting project. Together with Growing to Give , a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we create tree-planting partnerships with land donors to convert under-used farmland into permanent, climate-smart forests and shelterbelts.
We are available on a consulting basis to help you:
Whether your goal is to protect fields with windbreaks, grow high-value timber, or create wildlife corridors, our land-and-tree partnership model can be tailored to your property. We focus on practical, profitable tree systems that improve soil, capture carbon, and support long-term rural prosperity.
If you have 100 acres or more of flat, fallow farmland and would like to plant trees, we would like to talk to you. There is no fee to apply, and you retain full ownership and control of your land and trees.
Reach out by email to discuss windbreak design, shelterbelts, spiral plantations, or land donation and partnership options. We’re happy to review maps, soil types and climate conditions and help you choose the right tree mix and spacing for your land.
The best shelterbelt trees are hardy, climate-matched species with dense crowns and strong survivability. Many farms use one or more rows of evergreen trees such as spruce, pine, or juniper for year-round wind protection, paired with deciduous trees like oak, maple, or ash where they are adapted. A low shrub row (lilac, hawthorn, elderberry, or willow) helps close ground-level gaps, reduce soil scour, and provide food and habitat for wildlife.
For quick results, landowners often choose fast-growing species such as hybrid poplar, willow, or silver maple. These trees establish rapidly and start cutting wind within a few years, but they can have shorter lifespans or require more maintenance. For long-term structure, pair fast starters with longer-lived evergreens such as Norway spruce or Scots pine where suited. This “nurse tree + permanent tree” approach gives you early protection and a durable shelterbelt over time.
Tree spacing depends on the mature crown spread of each species and your target porosity (how “see-through” the windbreak is). As a general guide:
Use the Windbreak Calculator on this page together with the Tree Spacing Calculator to test different spacings and species mixes.
A well-designed windbreak can significantly reduce wind speed on the leeward side for roughly 10–15 times the height (H) of the tallest trees, with lighter benefits sometimes observed out to around 20H. For example, a mature shelterbelt 40 ft tall may improve conditions 400–600 ft downwind. On the upwind side the protected zone is smaller (around 2–5H), but still useful for preventing snow scour and protecting buildings or livestock.
Performance improves when the windbreak maintains a porosity of about 40–60%—dense enough to slow the wind, but open enough to avoid strong turbulence and downdrafts.
Any single row of trees is better than nothing, but 3–5 rows usually give the best long-term protection and resilience. A common layout is:
In snowy climates, additional upwind “snow-catch” rows can be added to control where drifts form and keep access roads, farmyards, and livestock areas more manageable in winter.
Copyright © All rights reserved Tree Plantation
