Abstract
Eight years of studying coffee ecophysiology and monitoring ecosystem services (ES) in a large coffee farm in Costa Rica revealedseveral practical recommendations for farmers and policy makers. The cropping system studied within our collaborative observatory(Coffee-Flux) corresponds to a coffee-based agroforestry system (AFS) under the shade of large trees of Erythrina poeppigiana(16 % of canopy cover). A lot of ES and disservices depend on local soil properties (here Andisols), especially erosion/infiltration,water/carbon and nutrient storage capacity. Therefore, for ES assessment, the type of soil is crucial. An adequate density ofshade trees (rather low here) reduced the severity of leaf diseases with the prospect of reducing pesticide and fungicide use. A simpleinventory of the basal area at collar of the coffee plants allowed estimating the belowground biomass and the average age of theplantation, to judge of its market value and to decide when to replace it. Coffee farms are probably much closer to C neutrality than predicted by the current C-Neutral protocol, which only considers shade trees. More comprehensive assessments, including trees, coffee, litter, soil, and roots in the C balance of the AFS are proposed. Shade trees offer many ES if they are adequately managed in the local context. As compared to full sun conditions, shade trees may (i) reduce laminar erosion by a factor of 2, (ii) increase N fixation and the % of N recycled into the system, thus reducing fertilizer requirements, (iii) reduce the severity of leaf diseases, (iv) increase C sequestration, (v) improve the microclimate, and (vi) substantially reduce the effects of climate change. In our case study, no negative effect on coffee yield was found.