Growth Response of Four Conilon Coffee Varieties (Coffea canephora Pierre ex A. Froehner) to Different Shading Levels

Abstract

In order to select a conilon coffee (Coffea canephora Pierre ex A. Froehner) adapted to shade, four varieties (C153, JM2, LB1 and GG) were submitted to four shade levels (0, 30, 50 and 70) with evaluation of plant height, stem diameter, collar diameter, number of plagiotropic branches, number of fruits, root colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and leaf anatomy. The experiment was carried out on a completely randomized design, in a 4 × 4 factorial scheme with ten replicates. We used organic compost based on cocoa shells for plant nutrition and cow urine for phytopathogenic fungi control. There was interaction between variety and shade factors for most of coffee characteristics analyzed. In general all coffee characteristics evaluated mainly fruit number and length of fruiting branches, significantly increased with increasing shade. Coffee varieties tested respond differently to the increasing of shade levels and leaf anatomy demonstrated the reduction of mesophyll thickness as the shading increased. The effect of shade levels on fruit yield fit to a positive linear regression for all four coffee varieties tested but the mycorrhizal colonization no presented differences among coffee varieties and shade levels. The varieties C153 and GG presented highlighted anatomical, growth and productive characteristics and can be indicated for shading cultivation, for example on agroforestry systems.

Assessment of leaf anatomic and physiological characteristics and genetic divergence among Coffea arabica L. cultivars in the Brazilian Savanna

“…The results of the present study are corroborated by Giles et al (2019), who verified a predominance of genetic components, in relation to environmental factors, on anatomic aspects of coffee leaves. On the other hand, the palisade parenchyma thickness was the only characteristic which had inferior values for heritability (Table 1), indicating a higher environmental influence for this characteristic, as observed in other studies that recorded changes in this characteristic due to environmental stimuli (Assis et al 2019, Pérez-Molina et al 2021. This is possibly a more plastic tissue, and its variations can provide optimization in the photosynthetic activity.…”

Effects of shade trees on robusta coffee growth, yield and quality. A meta-analysis

“…In five out of 30 experiments, the effect of shade trees on coffee growth and productivity interacted with other variables, namely cultivar (Assis et al 2019;Rodriguez-Lopez et al 2013;Venancio et al 2019), location suitability (Amoah et al 1997) and pollination type (Prado et al 2018). However, most frequently, the type of robusta clone interacted with shade level (Assis et al 2019;Venancio et al 2019). The amount of shade required to obtain the maximum robusta growth and productivity varied according to the type of clone tested (Table 2).…”