ILVO recently launched ACORN: a new, interactive decision support tool, as part of the “Agroforestry Planner” platform. The development of ACORN was made possible through connecting the AFaktive and DigitAF projects.
Authors: Bert Reubens & Paul Pardon (ILVO)
ACORN (Alley Cropping Output and Revenue predictioN) supports the design of agroforestry systems by combining simulations of crop yields, crop quality, and wood production with an economic evaluation. The tool focuses on alley-cropping systems and simulates yields over a ten-year period following the planting of the trees.
For these simulations, real fields that are present in the LPIS (Land Parcel Identification System) databases for Flanders, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Austria, Czechia, Portugal and parts of Germany can be selected. Alternatively, a rectangular field can be defined as approximation. The user has the possibility to adapt a selection of input parameters, such as the design of the alley-cropping system, reference crop yields, tree and crop species, crop rotations, and current market prices of arable crops and wood.
At present, the selectable tree species include Populus x canadensis, Juglans regia and/or an average tree. The tree growth curves used in the model are based on local measurements. Results are presented both in table format at field-level as well as through spatially explicit field maps showing the in-field variation of crop yield and quality and their evolution throughout time (see figure below).
ACORN was developed as an easy-to-use tool requiring a limited number of input variables from the user. This does, however, affect the degree to which site-specific conditions can be taken into account. Therefore, at present, the tool is considered valid for temperate Northwestern European growing conditions. It can, however, easily be adapted to alternative regions by altering tree growth curves and crop yield functions based on local data.
Further development of ACORN will focus on the inclusion of additional crop types and tree species. ACORN will be presented at the EURAF conference in June in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
To the ACORN tool: Link
To the manual: Link
To the demo video: Link