Is there an optimal sequence of planting when associating trees with perennial crops?

Question

If I want to associate perennial crops (let's say grapevine), with fruit trees (let's say olive trees), in which order should i plant? Both at the same time? tree first (so that the beneficial effect of trees is already in place)? crop first (so that the tree adapts more easily to the presence of crops)?

Answer 1

To our knowledge, there is no experimental evidence to answer this question. However, there has been a modelling study aiming at answering this exact question. The results show that the grapevine benefits from the microclimate created by olive trees in “bad” years and this beneficial effect of tree microclimate increases with tree age. Initially, olive trees perform better when planted in existing vineyard but this is reversed when trees get older due to several no-yield years when trees are associated with grapevine. Consequently, over the whole simulation (20 years in this case), the best scenario is olive-grapevine associations planted at the same time. This seems to indicate the olive-grapevine associations could be interesting to stabilize grapevine yield, under the condition that tree management is adapted to reduce the phenomenon of irregularity of production of olive trees. Of course, these simulation results need to be confirmed by field evidence before being used to make recommendation.

ref:

Gosme, Marie, Alexandre Cesari, Louna Gilles, Nicolas Barbault, Isabelle Lecomte, Pierre-Eric Lauri, et Christian Dupraz. « Chronology of Plantation in Perennial Agroforestry Systems : Is It Better to Plant Olive Trees in Vineyards or Grapevine in Olive Orchards? » In EURAF 2024 Abstract Book, édité par Bohdan Lojka (Ed. ) et Šárka Hoffmannová (Ed. ), 285‑86. Brno: Mendel University in Brno, 2024. https://doi.mendelu.cz/pdfs/doi/9900/06/1400.pdf