The Proceedings of the International Plant

Nutrition Colloquium XVI

UC Davis

Peer Reviewed

Title:
Coffee yield and nutrients uptake under different cultivars and plant populations
Author:
Furlani, Enes Jr, São Paulo State University, Ilha Solteira
Martins Paulo, Edison, Sâo Paulo State Departament of agriculture
Publication Date:
06-04-2009
Publication Info:
The Proceedings of the International Plant Nutrition Colloquium XVI, Department of Plant
Sciences, UC Davis, UC Davis
Permalink:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tv130fx
Citation:
Furlani, Enes Jr, & Martins Paulo, Edison. (2009). Coffee yield and nutrients uptake under different
cultivars and plant populations. UC Davis: The Proceedings of the International Plant Nutrition
Colloquium XVI. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tv130fx
Keywords:
Coffee, plant population, nutrient uptake
Abstract:
The cultivars adapted to regions of cultivation with regular coffee tree numbers per area and
the adequate nutritional state are premises to obtaining high coffee yield. The coffee triennial
production and the leaf macronutrient contents of coffee tree cultivars were studied under different
plant densities on a randomized completely blocks design, with 3 replications, in split plot system,
the parcels corresponding to the populations and the sub parcels to the cultivars. Catuaí Amarelo
(IAC 47), Obatã (IAC 1669-20), Acaiá (IAC 474-19) and Icatu Amarelo (IAC 2944) were planted
in the population of 2500, 5000, 7519, 10000 plants per ha-1 with one plant per hole and the
2500 plant ha-1 with two plants per hole. The recommended fertilization was equally distributed
among the plants of each treatment, but the liming wasn’t done after the coffee tree plantation.
Increments in the coffee tree populations increased the triennial coffee yield per area, decreased
the yield per plant and increased the leaf contents of phosphorus, potassium and sulfur in the
plants. Equal or higher macronutrient contents were found in the coffee trees under dense system
than on the ones under conventional and highest level of the elements in the taller cultivars and
the lower contents in the Obatã. An increasing coffee yield and lower phosphorus, calcium and
sulfur concentrations were observed with one plant per hole than in the ones with two. The coffee
tree cultivars and populations showed excessive levels of nitrogen and sulfur, but adequate levels
of other macronutrients.

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Introduction
The adoption of coffee trees cultivars more productive and better adapted to regions of
cultivation and the increase in the population of plants per area are important strategies to
obtaining higher productivity in coffee plantations. The interaction between the coffee plants
and the environment is showed when cultivars selected by the high yield and good agronomic
characteristics, with the same age, and growing in the same place and at the same time, show
different yields. On the other hand, many studies have found higher yield of coffee with the
densification of planting coffee. The increase of coffee yield expectation, due to the choice of the
best combination of the cultivar and planting density, brings the prevision of larger nutrients
export from the soil through the picked and marketed fruits and the consequent needing of higher
levels of fertilizing.
The aimed work was to evaluate the coffee triennial yield and leaf macronutrients
concentrations in cultivars of coffee under different densities of plant population and same level
of fertilizing. The study was carried out in Adamantina, SP. The experimental design adopted
was completely randomized blocks with split plots and three replications, the factors population
and coffee cultivar were respectively the plots and the subplots. Dwarf cultivars established were
Catuaí Amarelo and Obatã, and Acaiá and the Icatu Amarelo, as tall cultivars, in populations of
2,500, 5,000, 7,519 and 10,000 plants per hectare, with 1.0 m between rows and 4.0, 2.0, 1.33
and 1.0 m respectively between planting lines. An additional treatment was studied in the
population of 2,500 plants per hectare, with the distance of 2.0 m between plants on the row and
two coffee plants by hole.
The Obatã and Catuaí Amarelo cultivars showed the highest coffee triennial yield per area.
The Acaiá cutivar, with benefited coffee yield similar to the Catuaí Amarelo, did not differ from
Icatu Amarelo, the cultivar with lower yield in the experimental conditions. On coffee yield per
plant, the Obatã cultivar was more productive than Icatu Amarelo, but not from the other
cultivars. The group of dwarf cultivars produced higher amounts of benefited coffee fruits during
three years by plant and area than the tall cultivars (Table 1). Accumulated benefited coffee yield
in the period 1997 to 1999, average of the cultivars, increased (P<0.01) linearly (y= 0.8094 x
3353) (R2=0.87) (P<0,01) with density of coffee trees planting, while, inversely, the yield per
plant decreased (P<0.05) according quadratic model (y= -2E- 0.5x2 0.1458x 1500.3)
(R2=0,0,92) (P<0.05).
The higher yield was obtained in the population with approximately 3,650 plants per hectare.
However, the rate of yield reduction per plant is not proportional to the rate of population
increase, explaining the linear increased (P<0.01) yield under crescent population.
The coffee yield varied with the plant populations similarly in all cultivars, there is no
interaction (P>0.05) between the cultivar and plant population.
The population of 2,500 produced higher (P<0.05) amount of coffee fruit per plant when
established with a single plant per hole, which was not reflected (P>0.05) in the triennial yield
per area. The result confirms the reports that the coffee yield is greater when the plant is alone
than accompanied (Uribe & Mestre, 1988) and the Catuaí Vermelho, Icatu and Acaiá cultivars
planted in 4.0 x 1.0 m and 4.0 x 2.0 m with one and two plants per hole, respectively did not
showed significant differences regarding the coffee yield between the two spacings in total of
four harvests (Siqueira et al., 1983).
The coffee plants cultivars differed (P<0.01) in leaf contents of nitrogen, phosphorus,
magnesium, sulfur and (P<0.05) potassium, but not (P>0.05) for calcium (Table 2). The Obatã
showed the lowest values of leaf content of macronutrients, but did not differ from Catuaí
Amarelo in the levels of potassium, magnesium and sulfur, and Acaiá in regards to potassium
(Table 2).
The group of tall plants composed by Acaiá and Icatu Amarelo showed higher values of
(P<0.01) nitrogen, magnesium and sulfur and (P<0.05) phosphorus and potassium than the dwarf
cultivars, Catuaí Amarelo and Obatã .

Table 1– Triennial benefited coffee yield per plant and by area of different cultivars

Cultivar (c) (1) Coffee yield

-1
kg ha g plant-1
Acaiá 6978.34bc 1474.42ab
Catuaí Amarelo 8284.85ab 1649.71a
Icatu Amarelo 6596.60c 1317.42b
Obatã 8561.93a 1631.11a
F cultivar 7.23** 4.83**
Tall cultivars (2) 6787.47 1395.92
Dwarf cultivars(3) 8423.39 1640.41
F Tall/dwarf 20.81** 12.00**
Fpxc 1.67ns 1.32 ns
Population (p)
hole ha-1
1250 (4) 3941.32 1576.53
5000 4571.64 1828.66
7519 10148.60 1349.73
10000 10369.42 1036.42
F population 38.42** 6.06*
FLR 135.03** 13.42**
FQR 4.75ns 9.49*

It is known that plants of different cultivars but from the same species, growing side by side,
showed frequently a great variation in their chemical composition (Epstein, 1975). Augusto
(2000) reports that genetic factors may cause differences in leaf nutrients concentrations,
indicating greater or lesser absorption among cultivars and strains of coffee tree and its
efficiency, of translocation and use of nutrients by plants. Comparing the results of
macronutrients contents, it was verified (Table 2) that all cultivars presented excessive levels of
nitrogen and sulfur.
The populations did not differ (P>0.05) in foliar levels of nitrogen, calcium and magnesium,
but (P<0.01), but by other hand the positive effect (P<0.01) (Table 2) was observed for
phosphorus (y= 3E – 0,5X 1.2676) (R2=0.64), potassium (y= 0,0009x 17.952) (R2=0.91), and
sulfur (y= 5E – 0,5X 2.4688) (R2=0.58).
Table 2 –Leaf macronutrient contents in different cultivars and populations of coffee tree.

Cultivar (c) N P K Ca Mg S
-1 (1)
g kg
Acaiá 40.45a 1.50ab 22.76ab 10.47 4.57a 2.99a
Catuaí Amarelo 39.62a 1.54a 22.95ab 10.51 4.11b 2.63bc
Icatu Amarelo 39.57a 1.39b 24.37ª 10.50 4.65a 2.81ab
Obatã 37.11b 1.21c 21.62b 9.78 3.86b 2.42c
** ** * **
F cultivar 27.79 23.02 3.54 2.74ns 10.57 14.81**
Tall cultivar (2) 40.11 1.45 23.57 10.49 4.61 2.90
(3)
Dwarf cultivar 38.37 1.38 22.29 10.15 3.99 2.53
** * * **
F Tall/dwarf 36.10 5.29 4.54 2.47ns 29.09 35.37**
Fpxc 2.09ns 0.97ns 1.48ns 2.10* 1.79ns 1.06ns
Population (p)
hole ha-1
1250 (4) 39.06 1.34 19.99 10.43 4.44 2.64
(5)
2500 38.35 1.23 18.93 9.63 4.39 2.37
5000 39.63 1.48 23.66 10.49 4.19 2.84
7519 39.15 1.51 24.29 10.85 4.48 2.78
10000 39.76 1.50 27.75 10.18 3.99 2.93
F 0.89 ns 12.01** 15.40 ** 2.41ns 3.21ns 9.88**
FQR 0.16ns 0.01ns 2.14ns 0.06ns 0.83ns 1.33ns
* *
F 1 vs 2 2.68ns 5.07 1.25ns 5.27 0.07ns 7.54*
CV (a) (%) 5.22 8.52 13.63 9.84 9.23 8.90
CV (b) (%) 2.70 8.34 10.12 8.28 10.47 9.05
LR– linear regression. QR– quadratic regression. * - Significant at 5% level probability.
**- Significant 1% level probability. ns - not significant.

The macronutrient levels comparison among the cultivars of different populations with
reference values of appropriate macronutrient levels, showed the high levels of nitrogen and
sulfur content that exceed the upper limits.
The leaf content of potassium increasing with the planting density (Table 2) corroborates the
other authors (Augusto, 2000; Prezotti & Rocha, 2004), which can be attributed to the greater
soil moisture in increased populations with high absorption by coffee plants (Prezotti & Rocha,
2004). The positive response recording by the potassium leaf content for the increased coffee
population allows to infer the exploitation of potassium soil by dense system coffee plantation.
The results for calcium and magnesium contents, which did not vary with the population
(Table 2), partially agree with Augusto (2000). This author reported that the spacing did not
affect the calcium content, that was observed in this work for the Obatã cultivar (Table 2), and
that the magnesium content decreases with the population of Katipó and MG 6851 cultivars, but
not with the others that he studied.
 Some authors report that the spacing increases magnesium content and decreases potassium,
indicating antagonism between the two nutrients (Augusto, 2000), which was confirmed in this
study by obtaining the correlation (P<0.01) (r= -0.64) between potassium and magnesium.
Considering that the leaf nutrients content depends on the availability of minerals in the
rhizosphere the results of this study confirm the efficiency of nutritional resources used by dense
coffee plantations showed nutrient content similar or greater than conventional spacings.

References
Augusto HS. Desempenho de variedades de café (Coffea arabica L.) em espaçamentos
adensados. Viçosa: UFV, 2000. 122 p. Tese de Doutorado.

Epstein E. Nutrição mineral das plantas: princípios e perspectivas. São Paulo: Ed. Universidade
de São Paulo, 1975. 344 p.

Prezotti LC, Rocha AC. Nutrição do cafeeiro arábica em função da densidade de plantas e da
fertilização com NPK. Bragantia, Campinas, v. 63, n. 2, p. 239-251, 2004.

Siqueira R, Androcioli Filho A, Pavan MA, Chaves JCD. Densidade de plantio, poda dos
primeiros ramos e produção de duas cultivares de café e do híbrido Icatu. Pesquisa
Agropecuária Brasileira, Brasília, v. 18, n. 7, p. 763-769, 1983.

Uribe HA, Mestre MA. Efecto de la distancia de siembra y del numero de plantas por hoyo
sobre la producción de café (Coffea arabica L. var. Caturra). CENICAFÉ, Colombia, v. 39,
n. 1, p. 15-27, 1988.