A foundational paper providing evidence of the protective effects of trees in the agricultural landscape. Utilising a rare 30 year old agroforestry system (Wakelyns) as the basis for modelling to provide the evidence that many practitioners already suspected, namely the role of trees in supporting crops in resisting extreme weather.
Insights from this paper into the timing of leaf emergence and crop flowering provide another arrow in the quiver of future agroforesters. The species used in the modelling, wheat and walnut, highlight the numerous benefits that agroforestry can provide including crop protection, crop diversification, timber production, and biodiversity benefits.
The use of future climate projections should place the findings of this paper front and centre in the minds of agroforestry designers to develop agroforestry systems which resist against increasingly frequent and severe weather extremes that we are already beginning to feel the force of today.
Tosh CR, Gossell C, Lecomte I, Gosme M, Eden JM, den Hond-Vaccaro C, Simonson W, Herzog F, Dupraz C (2026) Agroforestry protects arable crops from climate shock during critical early-season phenological stages. Agron. Sustain. Dev.. 2026. Vol. 46(4). DOI: 10.1007/s13593-026-01129-3
