THE EFFECT OF TREE DENSITY ON YIELD AND SOME YIELD COMPONENTS OF ARABICA COFFEE IN KENYA

1. Hedge-planting systems of about 2.5 thousand trees/ha which allow for tractor access between the rows.
2. High density blocks at about 5 thousand trees/ha which do not allow access.

Results presented for system (a) show that yield increase can be obtained over a conventional density of 1.3 thousand trees/ha. Systematic spacing designs used to identify the optimum density for system (b), showed that this varied with site but that a practical density of 5 thousand trees/ha could give high yields at all sites. Yield component studies in these experiments indicated that high plant density generally reduced both the number of bearing nodes per tree and the fruits harvested per node. The future of high density coffee in Kenya is thought to be allied with the breeding of disease resistant cultivars.

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files)