Alley cropping system for soil and water conservation on sloping land has been used to solve
the problems which may be widely adopted among the highlanders in northern Thailand.
The alley cropping was applied to land management for the multiple cropping as field crop or
vegetable combined with fruit tree hedgerow or perennial plant. This procedure was used to
reduce soil erosion and monoculture cropping, and to increase the forest area, diversity of
plants and products, and farmers’ income (Panomtaranichagul et al. 2010). However, the
problem of alley cropping was damage of some fruit trees in the hedgerow during the dry
season (January-April). Particularly, growth of the new planted fruit trees were limited by
water stress, leading to decreased yield and quality of fruit production.