Assessing the performance of an agroforestry system based on quinoa and olive trees under saline irrigation

Abstract

In the context of climate change, agricultural productivity, especially in semi-arid areas, is facing serious challenges ranging from water scarcity to soil degradation and perpetual salinization. Therefore, looking for sustainable and resilient cropping systems has been a priority of the National strategy « Green Generation2020-2030 ». Agroforestry could be a sustainable way to diversify and improve land productivity through the complementary and facilitating potential of its components. This study aims to introduce quinoa as a halophyte crop to scale up the performance of current olive-based intercropping systems. The field experiment was conducted in an organic farm under saline irrigation (6 dS/m) and was laid out in a randomized complete block design with two cropping systems: monocropping (SC) and agroforestry systems (AFS), four quinoa cultivars (Puno, Titicaca, ICBA-Q5 and ICBA-Q4) and one olive plot as a control (OR) in each block. The average grain and straw yields for quinoa were significantly reduced in AFS, respectively by 33%and 45% while average olive yield was not affected by the cropping system. In addition, the Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) was always higher than one, confirming the performance of the agroforestry system based on quinoa and olive tree under saline irrigation.