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Soil fertility and Theobroma cacao growth and productivity under commonly intercropped shade-tree species in Sulawesi, Indonesia

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Abstract

Background and aims

Trade-offs between ecological benefits and potential yield and growth reductions associated with the inclusion of shade trees in cocoa agroforests remain poorly understood. In this study we investigate interactions between shade and cocoa trees in cocoa agroforests in terms of soil fertility and cocoa productivity.

Methods

We quantified the effects of individual shade trees from 11 commonly intercropped species on cocoa growth (aboveground biomass) and yield and soil fertility indicators (total soil carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus contents and soil aggregation) at field sites in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Results

Shade trees had a net positive effect on soil fertility in cocoa agroforests, with a 6% increase in soil carbon, a 4% in soil nitrogen and a 24% increase in mean weight diameter (used as an indicator for median soil aggregate size), under shade tree canopies compared to open areas. We found that shade trees had a net negative effect on cocoa tree growth and no net effect on cocoa yields. We were not able to link costs versus benefits with specific shade tree traits, but nevertheless observed significant differences between shade tree species. G. sepium (gliricidia) had significantly positive effects on yields, soil carbon and aggregation. N. lappaceum (rambutan) and D. zibethinus (durian) had significantly positive effects on soil carbon and nitrogen contents and on aggregation, but not on yields.

Conclusions

Our findings confirm the potential for soil improvements under shade trees and suggest that the inclusion of individual shade trees does not always constitute a direct trade-off for farmers in terms of yield losses.

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Abbreviations

AGB:

Above-ground biomass

C:

Carbon

LM:

Large macroaggregates

m:

Microaggregates

MWD:

Mean weight diameter

N:

Nitrogen

P:

Phosphorus

sM:

small macroaggregates

s + c:

silt & clay particles

SOM:

Soil organic matter

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by ETH Zürich, as well as by ICRAF. We would like to thank ICRAF’s AgFor team in Bogor for their advice and logistical support, the AgFor Kendari team, Husrin Laode and Pak Sabri for their invaluable organizational and technical support in the field, and the farmers who participated in our study - in particular Pak Ibrahim and Pak Susi. We also thank Britta Jahn, Camille Rubeaud and Mathias Gebhard for their assistance with laboratory work at ETH Zürich and Engil Pujol Pereira for her comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Ariani C. Wartenberg, Wilma J. Blaser & Johan Six

  2. Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, Mulford Hall, UC, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Ariani C. Wartenberg

  3. World Agroforestry Centre, ICRAF Southeast Asia Regional Office, Bogor, Indonesia

    James M. Roshetko & Meine Van Noordwijk

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  1. Ariani C. Wartenberg
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  2. Wilma J. Blaser
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  4. Meine Van Noordwijk
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  5. Johan Six
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Correspondence to Ariani C. Wartenberg.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 3 Variation in soil properties across individual shade-tree sites. The values displayed are mean values ± standard deviations
Full size table
Table 4 Results of linear regression analysis between i) difference in cocoa AGB and yields and ii) changes in soil N- and P-contents under shade trees, using shade-tree species as a covariate. Shown are R2 values
Full size table
Table 5 Results of linear regression analysis between i) cocoa AGB and yields and ii) shade-tree (ST) attributes and litter nutrient contents. Shown are R2 values
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Fig. 5
figure 5

Soil carbon (a), nitrogen (b), and phosphorus (c) contents; and mean weight diameter (or MWD) (d) in the topsoil layer (0–15 cm) obtained under shade-tree canopy (under canopy) and in open areas (no canopy) for 11 different shade-tree species and our control cocoa. The data is displayed as boxplots with dark horizontal lines representing the mean, the box representing the 25th and 75th percentiles, the whiskers the 5th and 95th percentiles, and dots representing outliers

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Fig. 6
figure 6

Mean number of pods counted on cocoa trees located under shade-tree canopy (under canopy) and in open areas (no canopy) for 11 different shade-tree species. The data is displayed as boxplots with dark horizontal lines representing the mean, the box representing the 25th and 75th percentiles, the whiskers the 5th and 95th percentiles, and dots representing outliers

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Wartenberg, A.C., Blaser, W.J., Roshetko, J.M. et al. Soil fertility and Theobroma cacao growth and productivity under commonly intercropped shade-tree species in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Plant Soil 453, 87–104 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-018-03921-x

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