Farming agroforestry weeds: turning a negative into a positive. A case study from southern Portugal

As part of a co-design process in the EU Agromix project aiming at introducing a productive function, rockrose received attention. This plant is an aromatic shrub, producing a highly valuable, although low yielding (~0.01-0.05%) essential oil (EO). Local essential oil producers currently wild harvest by hand. The idea was to convert the “weed” into a crop management plan in the alleys between the trees, but to scale the process through mechanisation.