Coffee is appreciated by millions of drinkers everyday around the world. Around 25 million farmers grow coffee in 60 tropical countries. Coffee plantation covers about 11 million ha around the world including both arabica and robusta coffee.
Vietnam is the second producers in the world with 700 000 ha of coffee. Vietnam mostly produced robusta coffee which is often processed into food products or medicines. Only 50 000 ha of the coffee area in Vietnam are dedicated to the cultivation of arabica. Arabica coffee is mostly consumed as the well-known coffee cup; the coffee you sip in the morning while waking up is likely made of arabica.
Arabica coffee was first introduced in Vietnam in the 19th century by the French. Varieties like Typica and Bourbon were the first cultivated in the country. Over time, those varieties were replaced by Catimor, a variety more resistant to pests and diseases in particular leaf rust, and regrettably making coffee cups of poor quality. Today, Catimor represents 95% of the arabica coffee grown in Vietnam.
Bringing new coffee varieties in Vietnam to replace Catimor could increase the overall coffee quality of the country and improve its reputation on the global market.
30 years ago, an expedition of naturalists and botanists went to the birthplace of coffee: Ethiopia. Ethiopia is well known by coffee afionados to supply the market with some of the best coffee beans. It is also the place where wild arabica and robusta coffee trees can still be found; arabica in the chill highlands and robusta in the warm lowlands. Along with arabica and robusta coffee, it is also possible to find their cousins, for example: Coffea stenophylla, Coffea brevipes, to cite only two among the hundred existing species.
The aim of the naturalist expedition was to study wild Coffea arabica with better characteristics than the common arabica coffee. They measured some plant features, checked their location, and more importantly, brought back some specimens in Europe and Latin America. These wild arabica specimens were then crossed with commercial arabica varieties known for their high yield and quality. Those crosses resulted in the creation of thousands of new and unique plants; each with the potential to become the new coffee star of the world.
Agronomists studied each plant and selected the most promising ones; those with high yield, good growth and resistant to pests or diseases. Scientists took two decades to create and select new arabica varieties because coffee trees are slow to grow and the first harvest allowing quality check happen only 2 years after planting. Among the thousands of new hybrids created from the wild arabica, only 20 were chosen and multiplied by agronomists to be planted in farmers’ demonstration plots.
The multiplication of the promising new arabica hybrids is tricky because they cannot be propagated by seeds. A fixed variety like Catimor can easily be replanted with the seed of a Catimor mother-plant; both seedlings and mother plant will look alike. For the new first-generation hybrids (F1-hybrids), planting their seeds would create seedlings completely different from the mother plant. The seedlings of the new hybrids are not stable, they create various unfit plants with varying yield. A farmer wants stability, he wants all his plants to look alike with a similar yield.
The only way to multiply the F1-hybrids is to clone them in-vitro with a piece of leaf from a mother plant which generated from the first viable cross between a wild arabica with a commercial variety. This process called somatic embryogenesis which translates in “birth of a new plant from a piece of the body of the mother plant” can only be done in strict laboratory conditions assisted with various plant hormones. Creating seedlings ready to be planted on the field through this process takes more than a year. An arduous task!
Later, once a first set of plants exists, it is possible to create new seedlings through micro-cutting which consists in cutting the head of young seedlings and replanting it in a rich substrate to let it grow roots. Micro-cutting can duplicate a set of plants every two months, making seedlings exponentially available for farmers.
In Vietnam, new arabica hybrids named Centroamericano, Mundo Maya and Starmaya were planted in 2018, the first time in Southeast Asia. The F1-hybrids showed good results in Latin America with a higher and more stable yield and cup quality than other commercial varieties; thus, it was natural to try them out in Southeast Asia where 20% of the world coffee is grown.
The plants are still young, but after 2–3 years, agronomic data will confirm their performance and a large distribution of F1-hybrids to farmers will enable coffee drinkers to enjoy an even better coffee cup every morning.
WRITTEN BY
SDG Warrior, World Citizen, Capitalist Hippie, Scientist, Polyglot, Storyteller, Writer, Earthling, Tree Hugger, Food Lover, Adoptee & Otaku
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