Cocoa Production as Affected by Shade Tree Species and Soil Quality

Abstract

Cocoa is one of the agricultural commodities that have important role and are reliable in realizing agricultural development program of Indonesia. The cocoaproduction of Indonesia tends to decrease that caused by in appropriate farming. This research aimed to evaluate the shade management to cocoa productivity and evaluating the correlation between soil quality and the cocoa production with the different shade management. This research was conducted from October 2016 until June 2017 in Kaliwining Experimental Station and Soil Laboratory of Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute (ICCRI), Jember, Indonesia. Clones at the trial plots were Sulawesi 1 and Sulawesi 2, 10 years old, and arranged in 3 m x 3 m spacing. The design of this research was conducted by observing parameters of sample trees on cocoa field. This research used three observation plots, with shade trees of leucaena (Leucaena sp.), teak (Tectona grandis), and teak combined with krete (Cassia surithensis) shade. The results indicated that shade species affected the cocoa production. Teak shade gave higher production of cocoa (i.e 3,01 kg.tree-1) compared to other species of shade (1.83 and 1.39 kg.tree-1 for leucaena and teak and krete combination, respectively). The correlation of soil quality with cocoa production showed that soil calcium content, earthworm biomass and soil bulk density were positively correlated with the production of cocoa. Shade species greatly affected the production in combination with the soil quality.

Mainstreaming Smart Agroforestry for Social Forestry Implementation to Support Sustainable Development Goals in Indonesia: A Review

“…Farmers improved their livelihoods significantly by practicing AF, as it provides multiple benefits for them [11,75,197]. AF practices were found to ensure economic returns and sustain farmers' livelihoods [75,198] as well as increase plant species diversity, since high-canopy trees enable the underneath crops to capture optimal sunlight, while deep-rooted plants can ensure optimal nutrient absorption [124,199,200]. In addition, indigenous AF also plays a role in land and water conservation, especially landscape conservation around springs and hilly areas [183,184].…”

What Makes Agroforestry a Potential Restoration Measure in a Degraded Conservation Forest?

“…Those MPTS planted during the Gerhan program, where the government provided farmers with seedlings, were preferred by farmers because the plants supplied significant food and income. Highcanopy trees enable the crops underneath to capture optimal sunlight, while deep-root plants can act as a safety net in nutrient uptake [37][38][39]. The shade trees should have a role in biodiversity conservation as strategies to encourage ecosystem maintenance and the sustainable management of cacao farmlands [36,40,41].…”

Short-term dynamics of leaf litter-derived soil organic carbon under different coffee and cocoa cropping systems

“…RH, may help to reduce the impacts from full sunlight exposure such crop drought stress. As an additional to their positive effect to coffee and cocoa farming systems (Evizal et al, 2009;Yulianti et al, 2018), the shade crops may contribute to an extra plantderived organic carbon such as leaf and pruned litter into the soil. The shade crop used to combine with coffee and cocoa may locally vary depending on economical decision to deal with the land productivity.…”