A Nectria Disease of Coffee in Western Guatemala

Abstract

Although the, Nectria canker of Coffea probably existed in Guatemala more than a decade ago, little importance was attached to it since only an occasional tree died and had to be removed. In 1935 the trunks of all the coffee trees at La Soledad, a large finca near Tumbador, Depto. de San Marcos, were vigorously rubbed with coffee sacking in order to remove the accumulation of algae, mosses, and lichens. That year the crop production was the highest in the history of the finca, but the following year the Nectria canker assumed alarming proportions. This fact suggests that the disease had probably existed before and was spread by the rubbings. It is now to be found in scattered spots throughout the finca. The study of this disease has been in the direction of a definite determination of its specific causative agent and an attempt to cultivate it artificially and to clarify its relationship to the imperfect Fusarium stage.2