Shade Tree Diversity, Soil Chemical Quality, and Cocoa Yield in Smallholder Agroforestry Systems — Juaboso District, Ghana

This dataset contains the raw field and laboratory data. Data were collected from 29 smallholder cocoa agroforestry plots in the Juaboso District, Western North Region, Ghana. The dataset comprises five components: (1) AHP expert-derived weights for 12 soil chemical parameters used to construct a composite Soil Chemical Quality Index (SCQI); (2) soil chemical properties (pH, SOC, TN, Al, B, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, P, and CEC) measured from 0–20 cm topsoil composites across 27 plots; (3) a shade tree species abundance matrix recording 13 species across 26 shade plots; (4) plot-level cocoa yield (kg tree⁻¹) estimated from 20 randomly selected productive trees per plot and canopy cover (%) measured by spherical densiometer; and (5) farm management covariates including pruning frequency, pesticide type and application frequency, and fertiliser type and application rate. Two plots (Plot_16 and Plot_31) were excluded from regression analyses due to incomplete covariate data; one plot (Plot_20) was excluded from diversity analyses as it contained no shade trees. All data are provided at the plot level and are sufficient to replicate the statistical analyses reported in the associated manuscript.