Abstract
Climate change poses a considerable challenge for coffee farming, due to increasing temperatures, worsening weather perturbations, and shifts in the quantity and timing of precipitation. Of the actions required for ensuring climate resilience for coffee, changing the crop itself is paramount, and this may have to include using alternative coffee crop species. In this study we use a multidisciplinary approach to elucidate the identity, distribution, and attributes, of two minor coffee crop species from East Africa:Coffea racemosaandC. zanguebariae. Using DNA sequencing and morphology, we elucidate their phylogenetic relationships and confirm that they represent two distinct but closely related species. Climate profiling is used to understand their basic climatic requirements, which are compared to those of Arabica (C. arabica) and robusta (C. canephora) coffee. Basic agronomic data (including yield) and sensory information are provided and evaluated.Coffea racemosaandC. zanguebariaepossess useful traits for coffee crop plant development, particularly heat tolerance, low precipitation requirement, high precipitation seasonality (dry season tolerance) and rapid fruit development (c. 4 months flowering to mature fruit). These attributes would be best accessedviabreeding programs, although these species also have niche-market potential, particularly after further pre-farm selection and post-harvest optimization.
Highlights
Coffee farming and the success of the coffee value chain is constrained by numerous challenges, including fluctuating market prices, adverse weather, pests and diseases, and various social challenges
Two distinct ecological niches were identified via mapping (including visualization using satellite imagery (GoogleEarth R ), herbarium data, and climate profiling: (1) low elevation (
Coffea zanguebariae is indigenous in southern Tanzania, northern Zimbabwe and northern Mozambique, between latitude 8◦20′-17◦30′ (Figure 2)
Summary
Coffee farming and the success of the coffee value chain is constrained by numerous challenges, including fluctuating market prices, adverse weather, pests and diseases, and various social challenges. Our current coffee crop species, Arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (C. canephora) still provide ample coffee to supply the global value chain, but narrative from farmers across the world’s coffee belt, and ongoing shortfalls in production during weather perturbations and cyclic climatic phenomena, tell of ever-increasing climate-related issues This is a result of the specificity of the climate envelopes for Arabica (Moat et al, 2017, 2019; Davis et al, 2018, 2021) and robusta (Kath et al, 2020), the perennial nature of the crop, and the fact that coffee farming has been extended into suboptimal climatic space for these two species and their cultivars
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