How do agroforest trees affect the supply of regulating ecosystem services?

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Preliminary use of YieldSAFE model to assess Eucalyptus globulus productivity in Portugal under future climate

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Carbon balance estimation for agroforestry land use alternatives in Portugal

PosterIn 2005, 11% of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) were originated from agricultural activities and this value is expected to increase in the future. Besides the contribution for the restoration of soil productivity and for the improvement of conditions in degraded land, Agroforestry is also proposed as one of the main solutions for the mitigation of the GHG emissions and their effect on Climate Change. With European Union’s legislation supporting and promoting the conversion of land into low-carbon-integrated agriculture, new opportunities arise for the implementation of this type of land use in Europe. In Portugal, this type of agriculture is well represented by a traditional Agroforestry system called montado, combining low density cork oak trees (Quercus suber L) with pastoral activities occupying an area of 715,922 ha, with recent studies showing an extra area suitable for its implementation of around 353,000ha. Considering the new policies established by the EU in regard to the measures to be considered in agriculture for the Climate Change mitigation, and the capacity of the Agroforestry systems to act as a low-carbon and highly productive agriculture, two main objectives are proposed for this work: 1) Compare the potential capacity of the montado to mitigate the GHG emissions by quantifying the net carbon balance of activities in comparison to two other land-use alternatives occurring in the same area: dense cork oak forestry and wheat monoculture; 2) Quantify the benefits/consequences in terms of net carbon balance if new areas are converted into Agroforestry systems, as an alternative to current activities and management models. The methodology for the net carbon balance estimation includes the use of the Yield-SAFE model, calibrated for crop components and cork oak and current most used management practices concerning the three land use types and associated activities.AGFORWARD FP7 (contract nº 613520); FCT CorkCarbon Footprint (PTDC/AGR-FOR/4360/2012

Using the yield-safe model to assess hypothetical eucalyptus silvopastoral systems in Portugal

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Modelling holm oak acorn production in south western Iberia

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Innovating tree plantation design: spiralographing agroforestry

PosterMost of forestry or agroforestry artificial plantations either have an orthogonal design, or curvilinear under contour lines to prevent soil erosion. These designs are known to maximize machinery workflow or erosion control respectively. As in many occasions in land use management, what optimizes machinery operation is not what optimizes prevention of soil loss and vice versa. An alternative and intermediate design system such as an Archimedes spiral could offer in one hand, the ability to have equidistant lines to facilitate machinery operation and, in other hand reduce soil loss in comparison to orthogonal designs. Additionally can be an alternative design when aesthetics plays a role in the planting decision. Although the spiral land use design is present in permaculture related literature, scaling up the methodology to forestry is practically absent in literature. This work tries to contribute to the knowledge of planting trees in an Archimedes spiral design. Making a spiral is a trivial command in computer assisted design, but this work envisaged the creation of the spiral in the field without any high technology software (e.g. tractor with laser technology) to enlarge the scope of possible application. We used the spiral equation to explore and define in the spiral: 1) the number of turns, 2) the distance between the arms and 3) the tree density. The widest machinery of the farmer was five meters so, to allow the tractor to move inwards and outwards in the spiral, we opted to design twelve meters between rows to allow 1 meter safety distance to the tree line. The final spiral would have three arms with two meters between trees in the line (240 trees). Part of the challenge was to implement the spiral with the exact dimensions in order to respect the farmer needs. To implement the spiral in the field a “field spiralographer” was made with the following description: an axis with about 1 meter high, where on top was placed a base with six equidistant arms. Each arm was made telescopic to allow different lengths of the arms. At 2 meters from the center the arms were marked and a screw pin was placed on the mark. A rope was rolled up around the screw pins. The number of complete turns is equal to the number of lines existing in the field spiral. Because the union of the screw pins in the arms’ builds a hexagon with 6 x 2 meters perimeter, a full turn has 12 meters length. To mark the spiral in the field, start unrolling the rope and walk at the same time avoiding a loose rope, marking the place for planting the trees. By the end of a full turn around the “spiralographer” there should be 12 meters distance between the first and last tree mark. By keeping unrolling the rope until needed, the spiral keeps being designed in the field depending on the turns needed. In other words, the “spiralographer” could be an hexagon with R radius, being 6xR, the distance between the lines in the spiral. Unrolling and keeping the rope unloose will provide a guide to mark the spiral in the field. Because the description might be unclear, a video was made showing the “making of” this spiral preparation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lzjT1UcJvM The experimental site is being used to survey operational costs to compare with conventional designs

Agroforestry can mitigate environmental problems in european agricultural deficit areas

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Using EcoYieldSAFE to compare soil carbon dynamics under future climate in two contrasting agroforestry systems

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Modelling the economics of agroforestry at field- and farm-scale

This report (Deliverable 6.18) assesses the economics of agroforestry systems at field- and farm-scales and compares them with alternative land uses such as arable cropping, pasture and forestry. This analysis is undertaken in terms of financial profitability (e.g. from a farmer perspective) and economic benefits (e.g. from a societal perspective)N/

Assessing the environmental externalities of arable, forestry and silvoarable systems: new developments in farm-SAFE

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