CUP QUALITY AND YIELD EVALUATION OF THE ETHIOPIAN GERMPLASM COLLECTION OF Coffea arabica L. (Vol. 3, Iss. 3, pp. 100-126)

María Del Pilar Moncada, Hernando A. Cortina, Rodrigo Alarcón.

CUP QUALITY AND YIELD EVALUATION OF THE ETHIOPIAN

GERMPLASM COLLECTION OF Coffea arabica L.

María Del Pilar Moncada1*Hernando A. Cortina1,  Rodrigo Alarcón2.

*E-mail: pmoncada.moncada@gmail.com

1. Maria Del Pilar Moncada, Research Scientist, National Coffee Research Center, Cenicafé. A. A. 2427 Manizales, Colombia.

1. Hernando Cortina, Research Scientist, National Coffee Research Center, Cenicafé. A. A. 2427 Manizales, Colombia.

2. Rodrigo Alarcón, Quality Coffee Assurance Office, Almacafé Calle 73 #8-13 piso 2 torre B, Bogotá, Colombia.

A R T I C L E  I N F O

Article Type: Research

Received: 11,Sep. 2019.

Accepted: 27, Sep. 2019.

Published: 27, Sep. 2019.

 

 

A B S T R A C T

This study was undertaken to characterize phenotypic variation for agronomic traits and cup quality in a collection of Ethiopian accessions of C. arabica as part of the Cenicafe coffee breeding program in Colombia.

C. arabica is a perennial, self-pollinated species of a woody plant, and germplasm collections must be maintained as living trees or shrubs. To make these collections useful for breeding, plants must be managed in replicated trials over several years, and evaluated for genotypic and phenotypic variation. In this study, 300 Ethiopian accessions of C. arabica were evaluated in 6 experiments, with 50 introductions/experiment and two controls, in a completely randomized design with 8 replications. The variables measured were the yield, growth characteristics, granulometry, rust resistance and cup quality. Differences among accessions were highly significant for all variables evaluated. We report here the results of yield and cup quality evaluation, currently, the most important traits for coffee breeding. Several accessions showed high yield, comparable to C. canephora control, and others had outstanding organoleptic characteristics of great interest for breeding. Our findings document the extent of phenotypic variation for highly valued traits in the C. arabica germplasm collection and point the way toward use of the collection in future breeding efforts. The overall objectives of the study were a) to characterize the C. arabica genetic resources maintained at Cenicafe for yield and cup quality, b) to identify accessions with outstanding yield and cup quality to use as progenitors in the development of new varieties, and c) to expand the genetic base of cultivated C. arabica in future breeding efforts.