Describing Agroforestry Systems with High Value Trees: A Summary

This milestone within work-package 3 is an initial report on innovations for agroforestry within high value tree systems. Three groups focused on the grazing of apple orchards which can be a sustainable system where the tree trunks are pruned to a height of at least 1-2 m. Two groups in Greece and a group in Italy have investigated the intercropping of olive orchards with barley and asparagus respectively. Intercropping orange trees with chickpeas, also in Greece, appears to provide benefits for orange production. Measurements within a walnut plantation being grown for timber in Spain demonstrated that tree diameter increments can be greater in grazed, than ungrazed, plots, and greater with a legume than an unfertiliser grassland understorey. There are also studies on bordure trees in the South West France and with chestnut trees in Galicia, Spain, where the results are still to be determined.

Pantera, A., Mosquera Losada, M.R., Ferreiro-Domínguez, N., Fernández Lorenzo, J.L., González-Hernández, P., Rodríguez, A.R., Corroyer, N., McAdam, J., Rosati, A., Moreno, G., Graves, A., Burgess, P.J. (2017). Initial report on studied innovations of agroforestry with high value trees. Milestone Report 11 (M3.4) for EU FP7 Research Project: AGFORWARD 613520. (7 August 2017). 26 pp.