Tag: arbo-innova

Dimitri Tsitos – The massive opportunity of regenerative practices in intensive tree crops and why data is the only thing that will unlock it

21st July 2026 antonellatotaro Landscape Design 2.0, Regenerative Agriculture, Soil Builders 0 Comments

This is a check-in conversation, an update on what three years of stacked regenerative practices on a real commercial almond plot is beginning to show with Dimitri Tsitos, co-founder of Agrosystemic and leading the Arbo-Innova project with real data now starting to come in.

Regenerative practices clearly work in these systems. But which ones? In what order? And how many at the same time before you’re doing more harm than good?

Take the clovers growing in the tree lines — what Dimitri calls living mulch. They fix nitrogen and push more of it into the tree than conventional fertilisation does. But in the first years, they also compete with the young trees for water, leading to slower early growth. Is that trade-off worth it? Do the trees catch up?

What the first data is already showing: Herbicide applications halved in a single season. Nitrogen levels inside trees on clover-berm plots higher than in conventional neighbours. Fungal disease pressure significantly lower on the organic test plot — with three bacterial spray rounds versus the neighbours’ ten synthetic ones. And an industry that, until recently, was watching from a distance, now leaning in.

None of this is easy. The J-curve of transition is real. The compromises — between tree establishment and soil cover, between water competition and nitrogen gain — are real. But the first data is clear: regenerative practices offer massive opportunities to reduce the environmental impact of intensive orchard systems in a profitable way. More resilient industry. Huge environmental wins. A transition that pays.

Dimitri Tsitos – Making regenerative intensive tree crops profitable

11th March 2025 koenvanseijen Farmers First Tech, Landscape Design 2.0, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture 2 Comments

A deep dive into the world of intensive—or super-intensive—tree crops, particularly olives and almonds with Dimitri Tsitos, co-founder of Agrosystemic, the Regenerative Agroforestry Podcast, the Arbo-Innova project and Mazi Farm. In Portugal, the sector is booming—highly profitable yet highly destructive—due to its high- input, high-output nature, with heavy reliance on fertilizers and chemicals.

This raises the question: can there be another way? That’s exactly what Dimitri and his team have been researching over the past few years—on real farms, running large-scale regenerative plots alongside conventional ones. The bad news? It’s not easy. It demands a systematic shift in machinery, protocols, and inputs. But the good news is the results are extremely promising: much higher quality olive oil, only a slight drop in production, significantly better price points, lower costs from day one, and biodiversity that bounces back remarkably fast.

It’s a booming industry that, like CAFO factory farms for animal protein, is reaching its limits in terms of public acceptance, climate risks, biodiversity loss, quality concerns, and rising input costs. But don’t despair—this is a hopeful discussion. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit (pun intended) ready to be rolled out quickly, following an initial phase of research and development.