Agroforestry Planner Explained
Demo video ACORNAgroforestry Planner: a web tool journey
The "Agroforestry Planner", developed with the partners of Agroforestry Flanders, is a digital platform that aims to support farmers, advisors, and (agroforestry) experts by offering a variety of decision-support tools. By clicking on the image below, you will be taking a journey to our collection of web tools which touch different topics, such as creating a plan for your agroforestry field, tree selection, estimating carbon storage, conducting a cost-benefit analysis, and calculating nut harvest costs.
This is the link to the old platform, but here you can click on ''English'' in the right corner to activate the language plug-in for all our tools:
Please note that, in general, these tools are created for the Flemish context. Once you want to use these tools for other countries, the outcome might differ in reality for your country of interest (i.e. with different climates, economics, soil types, etc.). As a solution, we forward you to the website of DigitAF. In the DigitAF tools catalogue, digital decision-support tools on agroforestry from various European countries are collected. Perhaps, a tool is available for your country of interest.
For some of our tools, access to the back-end datasets can be requested through this form. We will evaluate the feasibility and can discuss the conditions.
 | DENTRO New! | DENTRO is a tool that can help you choose tree and shrub species for your new agroforestry project, enabling you to select the most suitable species for your specific situation. With DENTRO, you can filter based on relevant plot characteristics, climate conditions, production goals, and other factors important in an agroforestry context. Your selection is then easily summarized in a report that you can save. |
 | BETULA | BETULA is a design tool that can help interested farmers, consultants and other applicators to draw up a concrete plan for the design of an agroforestry plot. Step by step, the user is guided through the various choices and aspects that need attention: from objective and tree species selection to effective planting and maintenance, management and regulatory concerns. |
 | INTACT | NOTE: INTACT is temporarily unavailable due to maintenance - we advise you not to use the tool until this message disappears. INTACT (INTeractive Agroforestry Cost-benefit Tool) is a dynamic calculation tool that allows you to interactively estimate the costs and benefits of the trees and shrubs in your agroforestry project. This tool helps you to take into account all components of the investment and maintenance costs, as well as the expected income, step by step. INTACT's aims to help you estimate (more correctly) the financial effects of your plans in advance. The tool focuses specifically on the costs and benefits of the trees and shrubs (without crops and animals) within the agroforestry system, making it a partial financial analysis. INTACT is thus not intended for integral business analysis.
One remark: After testing, it was found that the yield of Walnut cv 'Broadview' was overestimated. The advice is to choose the Common Walnut instead until the yield estimations are revised. This tool was developed under and financed by the LIFE project ''FARM LIFE'' and the VLAIO-project ''Agroforestry 2025''   |
 | CARAT | Total carbon storage in agroforestry systems is situation-specific and consequently difficult to generalise. This includes the effect of tree density, tree species, tree age and soil management. The Soil Science Service of Belgium, ILVO and Fornalab - UGent, all partners of the Consortium Agroforestry Vlaanderen, therefore developed the carbon calculation tool CARAT. Using this tool, a better estimate can be made of the expected carbon storage in the trees and in the soil of a specific agroforestry plot over time. This takes into account, among other things, the selected tree species(s), planting distances and soil type. More info about CARAT can be found here. |
 | MIMOSA | Based on your personal data, this interactive calculation tool gives you targeted advice for cost-efficient harvesting of your acreage of nuts. Together with the fixed parameters (working width, harvesting speed, fuel consumption, purchase price, depreciation period and machine loading capacity), it then calculates the cost price of harvesting your acreage with different machines for your specific situation (both with and without shaker). Of course, we do want to stress that this is a proposal based on theoretical calculations and only a limited number of machines are included in this calculation tool. It therefore remains important to check for yourself whether the proposed machines are suitable for your farming system. The objective of MIMOSA is to support making the right choices considering scale and farm specific preferences, labour availability, etc.
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 | ACORN (under development) | ACORN (Alley-Cropping Output and Revenue predictioN) is an interactive decision support tool that simulates the impact of an alley-cropping system on crop yield, crop quality, and wood production over a 10-year crop rotation starting after the planting of the alley-cropping system. Gaining a clear understanding of the impact of trees on crop yields and quality during these early years is therefore essential for assessing the economic feasibility of agroforestry.
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