Can Silvoarable Systems Maintain Yield, Resilience, and Diversity in the Face of Changing Environments?

UMR SYSTEM : équipe AMPLUSInternational audienceThis chapter discusses biophysical processes that explain the ability of silvoarable agroforestry systems to maintain agricultural yields while providing a range of ecosystem services. Silvoarable systems are very flexible, and many management practices can be used within them by farmers to sustain crop yields for as long as possible. These include the choice of tree and crop species, tree row orientation, tree row spacing, tree-thinning regimes, tree-pruning intensity, hedging of canopies, soil cultivation methods, and cover cropping. Tree roots do compete with crops, but they can also provide a “safety net” under crops to intercept nutrients and form symbioses with N-fixing or mycorrhizal organisms. Trees share light, water, and nutrients with crops, but competition can be minimized by ensuring increased resource use efficiency of the whole system. Trees increase the water-holding capacity of agricultural soils and contribute to the reduction and management of floodwaters. They influence climate at micro, meso, and macro scales and provide opportunities for climate change mitigation and adaption. At some silvoarable spacings, the arable crops will have to be replaced for the latter part of the tree rotation with pasture. These silvoarable systems then become silvopastoral (or agro-silvi-pastoral) in nature, and they are best suited to areas where mixed farming exists or can be reintroduced. The chapter's emphasis is primarily on temperate regions