Coffee Improvement by Interspecific Hybridization in Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia is fortunate in this aspect because it is the origin and genetic diversity center for Arabica coffee. This study's goal was to provide a succinct overview of Ethiopia's hybrid coffee variety development and successes. The main issue is a lack of improved hybrid types, despite the population of coffee having a high genetic variety, which offers enormous prospects for development programs. It is clear that current genetic and breeding research on coffee is insufficient to address the country's different agro-ecologies. Some of the fundamental breeding strategies to deal with such issues include combining ability analysis and hybridization investigation through heterosis. The presence of heterosis was reported in crosses of selected indigenous C. arabica L. varieties in Ethiopia under different set of studies, primarily due to the presence of diverse parental lines. Some studies had been conducted on assessment of heterosis and combining ability analysis for yield and morphological characteristics of coffee in Ethiopia. These findings unmistakably pointed to the potential for heterosis and combining ability analyses to significantly improve coffee. Generally, in Ethiopia starting from 1998 to 2023 only nine hybrid coffee variety released nationally. In order to create hybrids with improved performance and high yields for coffee with an Ethiopian origin, a continual crossing program should be necessary to obtain many additional cross combinations.