New model of clonal garden for the production of robusta coffee plantlets

Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the production of cuttings of Coffea canephora genotypes, in a new system for training mother plants called “vertical clonal garden”. The proposed new system consists of training coffee plants with only one shoot and without bending the main shoot, so that the secondary orthotropic shoots, from which the clonal cuttings will be taken, are formed across the length of the stem in the vertical direction. The capacity for the production of cuttings of ten hybrid genotypes of coffee plants was evaluated over ten production cycles. The 'BRS 2314', 'BRS 3213', and 'BRS 3210' genotypes showed cutting production per cut of 425,000 cuttings per hectare, considered above the obtained average. The 'BRS 3193', 'BRS 2336', 'BRS 3220', and 'BRS 3137' genotypes were the least productive. Coffee plants trained in the “vertical clonal garden” system can produce about 425,000 cuttings per hectare per harvest period or about 1.275 million cuttings per hectare per year, over three harvest periods, with a greater ease in crop management and treatments.