You grow crops that grow better under shade trees? This tool is designed to help you select appropriate shade tree species. We interviewed farmers in different regions, asking them for their opinions on various shade trees. These opinions were analyzed and are the basis for this tool.

When you want to know which shade tree species are best for your farm, please use this tool. You first select your country, region and crop of interest. After that, you are asked to select the attributes (ecosystem services) that are most important for you. The advised tree species are then displayed on a graph; the most suitable tree species score the highest and are displayed on top. The graph uses colors to show you how each tree performs for each of the selected attributes.

We want to stimulate the use of shade trees, but we also want to emphasize the importance of diversifying your plantation! A more diverse selection of shade trees is more versatile and sustainable for you and your farm.

This tool is limited to the regions where local knowledge has already been gathered. In these regions it is limited to the trees that were ranked and the ecosystem services that were chosen. If you want to expand the tool, feel free to do so. However, be sure to use appropriate scientific methods, and assistance where needed. We strongly advise you to contact us prior to starting your study.

The full methodology is detailed in this scientific article, with the main steps described below :

1. Select the target zone (country, region, etc.) ;

2. Identify ecosystem services (attributes) that are relevant for your target zone ;

3. Select shade tree species based on inventories on local farms ;

4. Target the population of interest, taking into account gender and youth ;

5. Interview farmers on tree knowledge and let them rank tree species for selected ecosystem services ;

6. Run the statistical analysis to attribute scores to tree species. An online tool can be found here and here;

7. Ask us to upload the results online.

1. Clément Rigal: ResearchGate

2. Philippe Vaast: ResearchGate

2. Laurence Jassogne: ResearchGate

3. Just van der Wolf: ResearchGate

4. Gilles Gram: ResearchGate

This R-Shiny app was developed by Clément RIGAL .

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