Source Year: 1996

Jungle rubber agroforestry is a low-input system in which rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) competes with natural forest regrowth. An area of forest is cleared by slashing and burning, and rice planted for the first year or two. After that rubber (unimproved jungle rubber) is planted with a variety of other useful (multipurpose) trees and rattans. The diverse forest-like environment means that the system is suitable. Further management options are conversion to a pure rubber plantations, or management as a fruit and timber agroforest. On-farm participatory experimentation with 3 kinds of rubber agroforestry system is being tested: (1) the traditional system but with improved adapted rubber clones; (2) a complex system in which rubber and timber/fruit trees are established after slashing and burning at respective densities of 550 and 250 trees/ha- a very intensive system, with annual crops being intercropped for the first 3-4 yr; and (3) as (2) but established on degraded Imperata cylindrica (alang-alang) land, and with cover crops or multipurpose trees instead of annual crops because of the competition from the alang-alang grass.