Vertical project : designing fruit agroforestry systems for a renewed horticulture

Although it's addressing multiple issues for modern farming, agroforestry mixing fruit trees and annual crops (mainly vegetables) has not been so well documented under temperate climate. One expected amenity of agroforestry is to increase biodiversity and natural pest regulation within the plot. While fruit trees are among the crops that rely most on plant protection products, we made the hypothesis that introduction of annual crops in the perennial system can lead to effective biocontrol and to input reduction, while developing other synergies between crops (shadow beneficial effects, water limitation, ….) or social amenities. On two locations (Durette/TAB) in southern France, with different characteristics (crop rotation, marketing, surface...), the partners of a 6-years funded project called Vertical, designed in 2012 and 2013 innovative cropping systems addressing those specific constraints, in order to optimize their global performance. These systems have been implemented in 2013 and 2014. Sustainability indicators have been discussed and selected to (i) monitor and (ii) to assess these systems. An ex ante assessment tool has been developed under a participatory approach, to stimulate the co-design of new performant plots. This tool will shortly be adapted to ex-post assessment, so that advisors but also farmers dealing with fruit agroforestry systems can identify their main bottlenecks and assets. A link to the national bottom-up network of fruit agroforestry systems (called Smart) will be achieved this way.