ENERGY ASPECTS OF CONILON COFFEE DEVELOPMENT IN NORTHERN FLUMINENSE. PART 2 - ENERGY BALANCE

Abstract

Conilon coffee represents a large portion of Brazilian coffee production, and it is essential to understand how the crop relates to the energy available in the environment. Therefore, this study sought to determine the components of the energy balance of the Conilon coffee crop in the North Fluminense region during seven harvests. The experiment was conducted in a crop field in the area belonging to the Darcy Ribeiro State University of North Fluminense, in Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ, which contains a micrometeorological station that monitored environmental data between June 2015 and May 2022. Using this information, the energy balance was performed using the Bowen ratio method, which made it possible to determine the crop evapotranspiration (ETc), the reference evapotranspiration (ET0), and the crop coefficient (Kc). The Bowen ratio energy balance method performed satisfactorily and indicated that 66% of Rn was converted to LE, 24% to H and 10% to G. The average crop evapotranspiration was 3.81 mm.day-1 and the average Kc per harvest showed an increasing trend throughout the experiment and ranged from 0.82 to 0.92. Conilon coffee presented an average productivity of 3.43 t.ha-1 (57.16 sc.ha-1) and it was concluded that an average of 0.08 g per MJ of net energy was produced.