4.3. Overall carbon storage
In this experiment the silvopastoral trees occupied 4% of the overall pasture area. Hence assuming that the SOC of the pasture, woodland, and silvopasture trees are representative of their respective areas, the carbon storage of the overall silvopastoral system was 63.4 Mg ha− 1 (Table 7). By comparison, the simple combination of 96% of the carbon storage in the pasture and 4% of the woodland would result in total carbon storage of 60.5 Mg ha− 1. These results suggest that the silvopastoral system could store more carbon than equivalent areas of trees and pasture in separate blocks. This increased carbon storage of the silvopastoral system can be explained by greater capture of resources such as solar radiation and water by combining two vegetation types. Even though the silvopasture trees were planted at a closer spacing (2 m × 2 m) than the woodland trees (2.5 m × 2.5 m), it is anticipated that each individual silvopasture tree was able to intercept more solar radiation than an equivalent woodland tree, particularly when the sun was not overhead.