Abstract
Exploration of fruit tree-based agroforestry systems is essential for Bangladesh’s agriculture in the era of climate change scenarios and shrinking agricultural land in order to ensure food and nutrition security at household and national levels. In the present study, a traditional jujube/apple kul (Zizyphus mauritiana) orchard was converted into an agroforestry system by including summer vegetables (okra and Indian spinach) and spices (ginger and turmeric) with a view to achieving greater economic return, maximizing land use and providing food and nutritional support. Results revealed that heavily pruned jujube trees in the summer season displayed negligible loss of light accessibility to understory okra and Indian spinach, which contributed to their higher yields. Conversely, the growing canopy of jujube trees exerted moderate shade at the later stages of growth that helped to attain improved yield from ginger and turmeric, which are shade loving crops. Intriguingly, jujube trees were able to utilize a substantial amount of the fertilizers and irrigation applied to the understory crops, which eliminated the need for additional inputs for jujube trees under the agroforestry system. Soil nutrient dynamics also improved in the agroforestry system as crop residues and leaf litter were left in the field. Importantly, nutritionally-rich, sweet-tasting, attractively-colored apple kul has a greater market value and the lack of vegetable productionin the summer season triggered a higher market price for Indian spinach and okra. This collectively heightened the benefit–cost and land equivalent ratios. Concisely, the current study concluded that the jujube-based agroforestry system could be endorsed as a model approach throughout Bangladesh for upgrading food, nutrition and income security.
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Acknowledgements
The authors desire to express their sincere thanks to the Research Management Wing, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Bangladesh (Grant No. 11/2017) for providing funds for this research work.
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Conceptualization: [Md. Abiar Rahman, Md. Mezanur Rahman, Satya Ranjan Saha]; Methodology: [Md. Abiar Rahman, Md. Mezanur Rahman]; Formal analysis and investigation: [Ashim Kumar Das, Sumiya Surmin Suvoni]; Writing—original draft preparation: [Ashim Kumar Das, Sanjida Sultana Keya]; Writing—review and editing: [Md. Mezanur Rahamn, Md. Abiar Rahman, Dean Current, Javed Rizvi]; Funding acquisition: [Md. Abiar Rahman, Satya Ranjan Saha]; Resources: [Md. Abiar Rahman, Md. Giashuddin Miah]; Supervision: [Md. Abiar Rahman, Md. Giashuddin Miah].
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Das, A.K., Rahman, M.A., Rahman, M.M. et al. Scaling up of jujube-based agroforestry practice and management innovations for improving efficiency and profitability of land uses in Bangladesh. Agroforest Syst 96, 249–263 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-021-00656-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-021-00656-0