AGRONOMIC EVALUATION OF TRADITIONAL AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS BASED ON RUBBER TREE (HEVEA BRASILIENSIS) IN THE WEST-CENTRAL OF COTE DIVOIRE

Traditional agroforestry systems, production, growth in diameter, dry notch,rubber trees,Daloa, Ivory Coast.For several decades, agroforestry has been seen as a tangible solution to fight against the degradation of the forest cover.However, some farmers remain reluctant to adopt this system.Its in this context that the present study was carried out to evaluate the performance of the traditional rubber tree based agroforestry system.To carry out this research, four experiments have been realized on two rubber tree plots, one immature plot and the other mature in Daloa, Central-Western of Cote dIvoire.In the immatutre plot, the effect of two forest species:kapok tree(Ceibapentandra)and akpi tree(Ricinodendronheudelotii)on the growth of rubber trees was studied.As for the mature plot, the study focused not only on the growth and the production but also on the impact of the kapok tree on the sensibility of rubber trees to dry notch.A total of nine (9) treatments on the immature plot and eleven (11) treatments on the mature plot were tested using a one-tree plot design. The results showed that the forest species studied have only influencedthe growth in diameter and the production of rubber trees located less than three meters from their proximity. However, the forest species had not affectedthe sensibility of rubber trees to dry notch. So, this study shows that the traditional agroforestry systems based on rubber trees dont constitute a danger to rubber cultivation and can be considered as a beneficial practice for the sustainable management of agricultural and forestry resources.