Orchard Alley Cropping Research and Demonstration
What is productive agroforestry and alley cropping?
Productive agroforestry is a set of agricultural technologies and practices that integrate trees and other forms of agricultural production in the same space, resulting in multifunctional agroecosystems that can produce nutritionally diverse foods and support a greater degree of biodiversity and ecosystem services than annual or perennial monocultures. Productive agroforestry involves the integration of fruit and nut production with complimentary uses of the understory and alleys for hay, annual crops, herbaceious perennials, shrubs, and/or animal grazing. Alley cropping is a form of productive agroforestry where trees and understory uses are arranged in linear rows, creating alleys, which are used for production of some sort. Generally, the complexity of management increases with the number of intercropped species and vegetation layers, representing tradeoffs in efficiency, nutritional diversity, and total food production in the system. Best management practices for satisfying different goals (such as carbon storage, protein production, total food production, biodiversity, early cashflow, nutritional diversity) while maintaining easily manageable and harvestable orchards have yet to be established for the Pacific Northwest.
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ISFS currently runs two productive agroforestry alley crop research and demonstration sites:
The Pome Fruit Alley Cropping for the Pacific Northwest project is located at the Gilbert Road farm in Richmond, BC. It is a 3 year project, funded through the Swedish Ekhaga Foundation, to study management, yields, and scaling potential of tilled and non-tilled organic alley cropping in apple and pear orchards.
The Hazelnut alley cropping for the Pacific Northwest project is located at the KPU Garden City Lands farm in Richmond, BC. It is a two-year project funded through the Rodale Institute to study alley crop management, costs, labour, and output during the establishment years of a new hazelnut planting.
For more information on both projects, please contact Dr. Maayan Kreitzman, maayan.kreitzman@kpu.ca
Pome Fruit Alley Cropping for the Pacific Northwest
Funder: Ekhaga Foundation
In 2024 and 2025, we conducted informal demonstrations of alley cropping using a variety of different crops, including flax, dry beans, winter squash, and cabbage. In general, we found that alley crops in a pruned orchard or semi-dwarf pears at 15 foot spacing between rows comparably to benchmark yields. This indicated that shade and root competition are not a major limiting factor.
Crop | Benchmark yield for BC (tonnes/hectare) | Benchmark yield other (tonnes/hectare) | Yield year 1 (saleable) (tonnes/hectare) | Yiled year 1 including discard (tonnes/hectare) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cabbage | 19.2[1] | 26.2[2] | 23 | 31 |
Winter squash & pumpkin | 26.8 (pumpkin only)[3] | 15-40 [4] | 15.5 | 15.5 |
Flax | 2.08[5] | 1.1-1.5[6] | .83 | .83 |
Dry bean | 2.4[7] | 1-3.5[8] | 1.3 (Cranberry/Taylor horticultural) .83 (Jacob’s cattle bean) .8 (Black turtle) .99 (average) | .99 |
[1] Area, production and farm gate value of field vegetables British Columbia, 2012-2022. B.C. agriculture and seafood statistics publications - Province of British Columbia (gov.bc.ca)
[2] Canada-wide average yield for 2003; Crop Profile for Cabbage and Broccoli in Canada - https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2009/agr/A118-10-9-2005E.pdf
[3] ibid. This yield is for pumpkin only, mostly consisting of “halloween” pumpkins rather than winter squash grown for consumption.
[4] Squash and Pumpkins - Vegetable crops production guide for the Atlantic provinces, https://www.gov.nl.ca/ffa/files/agrifoods-plants-pdf-squash-pumpkins.pdf
[5] Grains, oilseeds and other field crops: Production 2013-2023 - B.C. agriculture and seafood statistics publications - Province of British Columbia (gov.bc.ca)
[7] Grains, oilseeds and other field crops: Production 2013-2023 B.C. agriculture and seafood statistics publications - Province of British Columbia (gov.bc.ca)
[8] Beans (Dry) - Vegetable crops production guide for the Atlantic provinces Beans (Dry) (gov.nl.ca)
The handout for our 2024 field day, with a focus on transitioning from orchard floor to production, is available to download below:
Starting in 2026, our 3-year project focusing on management, inputs, and scaling of tilled and non-tilled alley cropping has begun. Pome fruits (apple and pear) are high-nutrient foods present in most Canadian's diets. This project studies the management and economics of alley cropping in apple and pear orchards with the specific aims of 1) demonstrating expected increased yields, nutritional diversity, and economic potential of orchards by establishing a pome fruit alley crop demonstration site; and 2) understanding scenarios for transition at the farm and regional scale using simple economic projections and geographic analyses.
The project will establish a demonstration site on our existing 1.5-acre, ten-year-old pear orchard in Richmond, BC, under (non-certified) organic management by adding a rotation of vegetable and pulse crops to the alleys between the tree rows. We will evaluate the management and inputs required, and resulting yields and soil properties. We propose to use these results, combined with updated enterprise budgets to generate economic projections for the viability of intercropping at the farm scale and implement larger-scale spatial analysis to generate economic and food production estimates for transition scenarios across the province.
Hazelnut Alley Cropping for the Pacific Northwest
Project partner: BC Hazelnut Growers’ Association
Funder: Rodale Institute; Mitacs
We are currently in year 2 of the hazelnut alley crop.
The Year 1 Final Report is available for download below. We planted 70 trees in two rows in March 2025, and planted an alley crop of 10 varieties of winter squash between and on either side of the rows. Brief results are summarized here:
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Labour:
A total of 171.5 labour hours were invested. Of these, 33% supported tree establishment and 67% supported the intercrop. Hand weeding squash was the most time-consuming task, followed by irrigation installation and harvest. Labour peaked during planting and harvest, with a lull before squash harvest that could accommodate other farm tasks.
Yield and Financial Outcomes:
The squash intercrop yielded 2,532 kg, which is equivalent to 19–24 t/ha (depending on whether tree row space is subtracted from total plot area). This yield is within provincial benchmarks despite organic production, late planting, and no added fertilizer. Financial projections show strong potential: at $3/lb (direct market), revenue (~$16,735) would cover both tree and intercrop establishment costs and generate profit in Year 1. At $1/lb (wholesale), intercrop revenue (~$5,578) would still offset alley-crop costs and reduce tree establishment expenses.
Overall, results suggest that intercropping organic winter squash during hazelnut establishment is agronomically feasible and can significantly improve early cash flow, though careful irrigation management is critical for young tree survival.
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