Agroforestry is a land use management system that integrates trees with crops or pasture. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies. As a polyculture system, an agroforestry system can produce timber and wood products, fruits, nuts, other edible plant products, edible mushrooms, medicinal plants, ornamental plants, animals and animal products, and other products from both domesticated and wild species.
Alley cropping of maize and sweet chestnut, Dordogne, France
Maize grown under Faidherbia albida and Borassus akeassii near Banfora, Burkina Faso
Contour planting integrated with animal grazing on Taylor's Run farm, Australia
A temperate Syntropic system in Dordogne France, including heavily mulched Sunflower plants.
In agriculture, polyculture is the practice of growing more than one crop species together in the same place at the same time, in contrast to monoculture, which had become the dominant approach in developed countries by 1950. Traditional examples include the intercropping of the Three Sisters, namely maize, beans, and squashes, by indigenous peoples of Central and North America, the rice-fish systems of Asia, and the complex mixed cropping systems of Nigeria.
Pawpaw trees growing under mulberry trees, a forest gardening style of polyculture
A Central American polycultural "milpa" in 2011. Beans are growing among the drying maize; banana trees are in the background.
Excellent soil structure in land in South Dakota farmed without tillage using a crop rotation of maize, soybeans, and wheat accompanied by cover crops. The main crop has been harvested but roots of the cover crop are still visible in autumn.
Applying pesticides to crops in a monoculture: polycultures need lower inputs, reducing environmental harms.
