View article

In Patagonia, silvopastoral systems in Nothofagus antarctica (ñire) forest has become an economically, ecologically and socially productive land-use system. Patagonian experience with silvopastoral systems in the past 15 years is reviewed in this chapter. The productivity and nutritive value (crude protein content and dry matter, DM, digestibility) of understorey grassland were dependent on the interaction of environmental (mainly soil water availability and light intensity) and system level management factors. Planned thinning in secondary forest stands provide wood production and also improve the undestorey DM production by increasing incoming radiation. Within a Management Plan, two thinning intensities, depending on stand water stress conditions, are proposed. In addition, the use of Reineke’s Stand Density Index (SDI) is recommended to be used when deciding thinning intensities for different …