3. Results and discussion
3.1. Height growth and biomass accumulation of trees
For the alley cropping system established in Lusatia, remarkable
differences could be found between height growth of
R. pseudoacacia on the one hand and Populus spp. and S.
viminalis on the other hand. The average height of R. pseudoacacia
peaked at 402 cm, whereas mean heights of Hybride
275, Androscoggin and S. viminalis only reached 265, 283, and
182cm (Fig. 3). In the initial phase, the growth performance of
S. viminalis appeared to be better than for Populus spp. However,
starting in 1999 growth of S. viminalis remained static,
whereas, poplars turned out to develop much better showing