Agroforestry systems for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change: Effects on soil fertility

Agroforestry (AF) systems are gaining pace as good examples of sustainable cropping systems with also a role in climate change mitigation/adaptation. This is mainly because of their huge C sequestration potential and the diversification of the agroecosystem implying high resilience in respect to stressful conditions. At the Centre for Agri-environmental Research “Enrico Avanzi” of the University of Pisa, Italy, a new long-term field experiment has been started in 2018 on 40 ha of arable land with the aim to assess the performances of different cropping systems at different levels of integration between herbaceous crops and trees. Soil organic carbon storage will be one of the main parameters that will be assessed in the long term at different depths and at different distances from the tree rows to assess the importance of the interaction between the system components in terms of soil fertility. The long-term experiment is expected to provide solid data on the contribution of innovative AF systems to climate change mitigation in Mediterranean areas.