Agroforestry, with its wide range of economic, ecological, and social benefits, provides a sustainable alternative to contemporary agriculture linked today to many environmental and social problems. However, on-the-ground adoption and dissemination of U.S. agroforestry remains limited despite advances in research on its application, benefits, and potential. Few studies have explored factors influencing agroforestry adoption and dissemination bottlenecks in the U.S., and they usually do not cover temporal aspects of agroforestry adoption. A review of the temporal dynamics of agroforestry adoption in the U.S. showed its importance for understanding the innovation-decision process and the complexity of agroforestry practice adoption. An in-depth study was conducted focusing on the timeline of agroforestry adoption by practitioners across the U.S. who have implemented an agroforestry project with the support from the USDA SARE program. Results highlight the importance of personal values and character traits, availability of information and support, and access to land as factors influencing adoption. The long period of agroforestry practice establishment prior to returns on investment results in longer innovation-to-decision periods and implementation-to-confirmation periods. The study suggests using innovation-to-confirmation instead of innovation-to-decision periods to more accurately reflect the adoption dynamics. To better understand agroforestry adoption and dissemination, results point to the need to incorporate temporal aspects and establish longitudinal research on different types of agroforestry practices.

农林业具有广泛的经济、生态和社会效益，为当今与许多环境和社会问题相关的当代农业提供了一种可持续的替代方案。然而，尽管在其应用、益处和潜力方面的研究取得了进展，但美国农林业的实地采用和传播仍然有限。很少有研究探讨影响美国农林业采用和传播瓶颈的因素，而且它们通常不涵盖农林业采用的时间方面。对美国农林业采用的时间动态的回顾表明，它对于理解创新决策过程和农林业实践采用的复杂性具有重要意义。进行了一项深入研究，重点关注美国各地从业者采用农林业的时间表 在美国农业部 SARE 计划的支持下实施了农林业项目。结果强调了个人价值观和性格特征、信息和支持的可用性以及获得土地的重要性，这些因素是影响收养的因素。在投资回报之前建立农林业实践的较长时间导致较长的创新到决策期和实施到确认期。该研究建议使用创新到确认而不是创新到决策的时期来更准确地反映采用动态。为了更好地了解农林业的采用和传播，结果表明需要纳入时间方面并建立对不同类型农林业实践的纵向研究。