Being a profitable form of farming, the quality and quantity of agroforestry products highly depend on the production technology.
As alley cropping involve planting rows of trees at a wide spacing to create ways where agricultural crops are produced, trees are integrated into farming operations to create diversity of income sources.
Agroforestry practices
Alley cropping benefits include enhancing of income, improving on crop production, protecting of crops and providing conservation benefits. For desired benefits, plan the design by identifying production objectives.
Similarly, determine the tree spacing, row orientation, create maintenance plan, decide on tree species that meet objectives and site condition to which they will be planted. Tree characteristics must be marketable, compatible with crops or forage. They must be of high quality and fast growing, deep rooted, site tolerant and produce light shade.
Furthermore, for timber objectives, know the trees and crops planted and shading in alley increases depending on how wide alley is spaced. Share your plan with experts for economic optimisation and finally alley cropping is used for income diversity and conservation benefits.
