Density planting system in coffee

Effect of different cutting distances of lateral branches and type of skeleton on coffee trees grown in a dense planting system. 

In mountain coffee farming, the adoption of a dense planting system is an essential condition for obtaining high productivity and greater competitiveness in areas where mechanization is not possible. In dense crops, there is rapid closure of plants between the rows and consequent management difficulties. The most used solution in these crops, to facilitate cultural treatments and recover the plants, has been recepa, carried out when the coffee trees have already lost their leaves, a system that leads to a reduction in production in the following two years. 

The alternative use of pruning, called skeletonization, is indicated for renewing the branches, with less productive losses of the plants in the short term. However, there remain doubts about the cutting distances of lateral branches in relation to the trunk, especially in very dense crops.

The aim of the present work was to study the most appropriate type of skeletonization in dense crops, but without loss of skirt, the same as would be applied in a zero harvest system.

A trial was conducted in the municipality of Martins Soares, Minas Gerais, at the “Eloy Carlos Heringer” Coffee Research Center (CEPEC), belonging to Fertilizandos Heringer, in a red Catuaí IAC 44 coffee plantation, planted in 1993, at a spacing of 1,50, 0,70m x 2008 m, received in 6. 1,50 treatments were set up, with five types of skeletonization (cutting size of lateral branches and cut shape), plus the control without pruning. The neckline, that is, the cutting of the main stem of the plant, was made at 1 m in treatments 4 to 5, and in the 1,00th (regional pruning) a neckline at XNUMX m was used, as used in the region for recovery. of crops.

The trial was installed in randomized blocks, with plots of four lines, of 10 plants each, for a total of 40 plants per plot. Four replications were implemented.

Pruning treatments were applied in September 2010 and the area received the usual treatments recommended over the last four years.

To evaluate the effect of pruning, three harvests have been controlled so far, in the period 2011, 2012 and 2013, with the harvest and conversion of liters per plant to bags per hectare.

Results and conclusions

The productivity results in the three harvests are shown in table 1.

It was found that, on average over the three harvests, skeletonization where the branches were cut longer (50cm and 30cm) or in the shape of a Christmas tree, resulted in greater productivity. Where there was shorter pruning and lower neckline height, there was a loss of productivity in relation to other types of skeletonization. With regard to the control, there was no productive improvement due to skeletonization, as is common, especially as the first harvest in the plants in this treatment was high. The test should be carried out for another 2 harvests.

Preliminarily, it is possible to conclude that skeletonizing with a longer cut of the branches, allowing greater sprouting and multiplication of new productive branches, results in greater productivity in relation to the shorter cut.

Gustavo Nogueira Guedes Pereira Rosa, Heringer Fertilizers; José Brás Matiello, Procafé; Henrique Maia Ribeiro, Heringer Fertilizers; Sinésio Leite Filho, Heringer Farm; Vinícius Vieira Cunha, CEPEC – Heringer Fertilizers 

Article published in issue 202 of Cultivar Grandes Culturas.