Productivity and physical quality of grains from Coffea arabica L. in a tropical high-altitude climate in Brazil

Abstract

The coffee plant is extremely important for Brazilian agribusiness as it generates foreign exchange earnings and employment throughout the production chain. In this study, we evaluated the production and parameters related to the quality of 18 Coffea arabica L. cultivars grafted onto the Apoatã IAC 2258 cultivar, in seven consecutive harvests. The experiment was installed in 2014 and carried out for seven harvests, in Fazenda Recreio in the municipality of Vera Cruz, state of São Paulo, Brazil. We used a randomised block design (DBC), with three experimental replications, which were conducted in 54 plots. We analysed productivity, yield, and grain size parameters. The data were evaluated by the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the mean values were used to conduct the Scott-Knott and Tukey test. The results showed that in all the cycles, the characteristics evaluated showed significant differences among the cultivars. The ratio between the residual mean squares of the analysis of variance was less than 7:1 for all the characteristics evaluated, which allowed us to compare the seven harvests with each other. The cultivars IPR 100, Obatã IAC 1669–20, IPR 107 and IAC 125 RN performed the best, as determined by the parameters evaluated, and thus, we recommend these cultivars for growing coffee tropical high-altitude climate in Brazil.