Newly established forest plantations can be intercropped with medicinal plants similar to food crops until the trees cover the ground. The participation of the local people with the right to share benefits of the plantations, especially ownership to crops, has helped government to establish plantations without conflict with the local people in many Asian countries. The same approach can be employed for the cultivation of medicinal plants in the new plantations. In the rehabilitation of degraded forest lands, participating, planning and implementation with local communities and economic benefits from an early stage onwards will ensure commitment of the people. The intensity of shade experienced by the under storey medicinal plants growing in forests and tree plantation affects their growth and chemical composition. In recent year’s attention has focused on the diversified medicinal plant production system for maximizing utilization of resources as compared to the monoculture cropping systems. The improved use of resources results in greater total intercrop yields as compared to sole crops of the same species grown on the same area.

Field experiments were conducted to find out performance of herbal medicinal crops (basil, kalmegh & mint) under Sapota-Jatropha based three-tier agroforestry system at the Agronomy Farm (Block-E), ASPEE College of Horticulture and Forestry, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari (Gujarat) during rainy season of 2011 and 2012. The experiments were laid out in randomized block design with six treatments and four replications. Three medicinal plants viz., Basil (Ocimum sanctum L.), Kalmegh (Andrographis paniculata Well.) and Mint (Mentha arvensis L) were selected for the present study. The observation on fresh weight of plant/plot (kg), dry weight of plant/plot (kg) and economic yield (q/ha) was recorded higher under sole crop of basil, kalmegh and mint as compared to intercrop with Sapota-Jatropha in both the years. While Basil (1.67), Kalmegh (1.46) and Mint (1.40) when grown as intercrop gave higher economic returns as compared to sole crop in 2011 and 2012.