Wainer Woods: Farmland & Wetland Soils

The Glaciers
Over ten thousand years ago the glaciers of the last ice age dropped huge amounts of rocks and sand as they melted and receded northwards from the Massachusetts coastal lands that the Wainer family's ancestors inhabited. The agriculturallyproductive and wetland soils that have accumulated since the glacial retreat at Wainer Woods are strongly influenced by the patterns and characteristics of the glacially deposited material on which they have formed.

Lowland Wetland Soils
Over the milennia since the glaciers retreated and left ridges in the landscape of Westport, water and carbon rich organic matter (dropped leaves, dead wood, decaying organisms, etc.) have followed gravity downhill and collected into low spots. At Wainer Woods this flow has occurred from the hill just south of the property towards the low areas on the west and east sides of the property. This formed wetlands on the eastern edge of the Tomahawk parcel and to the west of the property along Highway 88.
The soils in these low spots are rich, wet, and mucky, make unproductive farmland, and are legally protected from alteration by the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act (310 CMR 10.00). The wetland's biodiversity has harbored valuable medicinals that the Wainer family has foraged for generations, and as such is a powerful community resource for Chief Rob's hope to share TEK with others.
The wetlands at Wainer Woods are also one of the property's greatest resources for the client's climate change mitigation and adaptation goals. In addition to providing a valuable forage and wildlife biodiversity hotspot, the site's wetlands are the most productive carbon sink and storage landscape type on the property. Though they make up a mere 3% of the world's surface, wetlands store 30 to 50% of the world’s carbon, which is twice as much as global forests (UN Environment).

*Map of Wainer Woods

Upland Farmland Soils

The site's upland soils contain the well-draining coarse sands and rock particles that the glaciers deposited as they retreated many thousands of years ago, and have combined with organic particles from decaying life at the soil's surface ever since. The organic matter adds a spongelike quality that keeps the well draining soils moist, but not water logged. These conditions, combined with low erodability and flooding frequency, at least 40 inches of rooting depth, desirable pH balance, and other characteristics produce desirable qualities for conventional crop production. The USDA has classified farm soils of national significance to conservation as Prime Farmland Soils, and state significant soils are Soils of Statewide Importance. Over 90% of the soils at Wainer Woods are are classified as Prime or of Statewide importance. This bodes well for the client's goals to grow locally adapted annual crops such as the three sisters. The family's land use history supports the data provided by the National Resource Conservation Services. Historical imagery show from the forestry plan shows that the last farmland areas abandoned were the prime farmland soils towards the site's center.