Carbon in shade coffee: Agroforestry sampling protocol

For a representative picture of the diverse practices and patterns in the present shade CAFs, all approx. 50 associated smallholder CAFNET/NUCAFE farmers in the Mabira forest areaand their plantations will be chosen randomly following a protocol developed for the activities also involving the socioeconomic survey. These farmers will be visited and their coffee plots surveyed in the time from January to June 2010. Focus lies on assessing the biomass of shade trees (> 5 cm dbh) in the coffee agroforestry systems. In cases where allometric equations are not readily available for shade tree species, generic equations(e.g. from Chave et al. 2005) will be applied. However, wood density measurements according to the adapted methodology by Francis (1994) will be conducted for at least 30 trees per species at breast height. All Shade trees will be assessed in terms of species, height, diameter at breast height (dbh) and crown diameter. Species specific wood density will be sampled on wood cores for 10individuals per species. No other destructive sampling on shade trees will be conducted. If one tree is found per species in the entire study, then wood density is obtained from that tree to represent that species.For biomass conversion, the allometries by Tumwebaze (2008) will be applied to trees of the respective species, allometries from literature for other species where applicable and where no species specific allometries are available the moist forest equation by Chave et al. (2005) will be applied considering the species specific wood density fact.

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