HORTICULTURE

Detailed explanation-1: -Alley cropping is an agroforestry practice that places trees within agricultural cropland systems. This system is sometimes called intercropping, especially in tropical areas. It is especially attractive to producers interested in growing multiple crops on the same acreage to improve whole-farm yield.

Detailed explanation-2: -Agroforestry is a collective name for land-use systems and technologies where woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palms, bamboos, etc.) are deliberately used on the same land-management units as agricultural crops and/or animals, in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence.

Detailed explanation-3: -Of the many common agroforestry practices around the world, alley cropping (AC) − the intentional integration of trees and crops − most closely combines these two components. AC is typically comprised of widely spaced rows of trees or shrubs with a range of agricultural crops grown in the intervening “alleys”.

Detailed explanation-4: -Agroforestry has its roots in tropical food production systems. In regions with more temperate climates, agroforestry is separated into five distinct but related practices. The five practices are windbreaks, riparian forest buffers, alley cropping, silvopasture and forest farming.