1Diversification of Traditional Agricultural Crop Rotation Through Poplar Based Agroforestry in Indian Punjab

Punjab state with geographical area of 5.04 million hectare is predominantly an agrarian state having 84 per cent of its area under highly intensive technical and mechanical agriculture, whereas, forests occupy only 2432 sq km, which comes out to be about 0.02 hectare per capita. It is also not possible to divert the fertile agriculture land to forests in view of prevailing socio-economic and agro-climatic conditions favorable for agriculture. The only option to increase area under tree cover is to integrate the tree species with agricultural crops on farm lands. Poplar (Populus deltoides), a fast growing and short rotation species finds a comfortable place for inclusion under agroforestry systems. Poplar can greatly contribute towards production of wood for industrial and other commercial purposes, besides maintaining ecological balance, uplifting of socio-economic status of the farmers and at the same time diversify the traditional rice-wheat agricultural rotation. Most of the research studies conducted pertaining to analysis of system have dealt with physical & biological aspects, thereby neglecting the systematic analysis of agroforestry’s social and economi