Natural mutation of the Bourbon variety

GENETIC DESCRIPTION

Bourbon-Typica Group (Bourbon-related)

HISTORY

Caturra is a natural mutation of the Bourbon variety. It was discovered on a plantation in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil sometime between 1915 and 1918.

Caturra has a single-gene mutation that causes the plant to grow smaller (called dwarfism). Its name derives from the Guarani word meaning „small.” It is also called „Nanico.” After Caturra’s discovery, selections were made by the Instituto Agronomico (IAC) of Sao Paulo State in Campinas, Brazil, starting in 1937. Breeders were interested in Caturra’s small size, which allows plants to be placed closer together, and its closely spaced secondary branches, which enable it to produce more fruit in the same space.

The selection process for Caturra was called mass selection, meaning that a group of individuals are selected based on their superior performance, seed from these plants is bulked to form a new generation, and then the process is repeated. The variety was never officially released in Brazil, but has become common in Central America.

It was introduced in Guatemala in the 1940s, but widespread commercial adoption didn’t happen for another three decades. From Guatemala, it was introduced to Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama. Today, it is one of the most economically important coffees in Central America, to the extent that it is often used as a “benchmark” against which new cultivars are tested. In Colombia, Caturra was thought to represent nearly half of the country’s production until a government-sponsored program beginning in 2008 incentivised renovation of over three billion coffee trees with the leaf-rust resistant Castillo variety (which has Caturra parentage).

Caturra led in part to the intensification of coffee cultivation through higher density planting, often in full sun, that took place in the region in the second half of the 20th century.

Caturra is also known for being one of the parents the so-called “Catimor” family of cultivars. Various lines of the coffee-leaf-rust-resistant Timor Hybrid were crossed with Caturra to produce a dwarf plant with rust resistance. Examples of Catimor varieties include: Costa Rica 95, Catisic, Lempira, and IHCAFE 90.

STATURE

Dwarf/Compact

LEAF TIP COLOR

Green

BEAN SIZE

Average

COFFEE LEAF RUST

Susceptible

COFFEE BERRY DISEASE (CBD)

Susceptible

NEMATODES

Susceptible

Source: World Coffee Research

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At least from the 1950s onward, Caturra was a highly common cultivar across Colombia, introduced because of its productivity over traditional Typica or Bourbon. Caturra, however, while granting more yields, is equally susceptible to coffee leaf rust and other diseases.

Released in 2005, Castillo, which takes its name from researcher Jaime Castillo and is actually trademarked by Cenicafe, is an improvement of the Colombia variety and has become the most planted variety in Colombia.

Developed over five generations by Cenicafe between 1968 and 1982, the Colombia variety (Variedad Colombia) was the result of successful hybridization of Caturra with the Timor Hybrid. Colombia was developed in advance of Colombia’s first coffee leaf rust outbreak, which hit the country in 1983. Although the new cultivar helped the country’s farmers weather the crisis, Cenicafe suspected that other outbreaks and new diseases were just around the corner. They continued to work towards improvements, and the new arrival of Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) to the country in the early 2000s hastened research methods. The result of this painstaking effort has been the Tabi and the Castillo cultivars.

The Castillo variety was officially given to coffee growers in May 2005 and is the flag of the program “Colombia sin Roya” (Colombia without Rust) implemented by the FNC. The program is aimed at recovering and renewing the production of high quality coffee in the country.

Cenicafe has also developed sub-cultivars from Castillo that bear the added benefit of being particularly adapted to specific agronomic and climatic differences of various regions within the country. 7 cultivars have been developed from Castillo so far, each retaining the main characteristics of the progeny from which they were obtained (Caturra for cup quality and its small size and Timor Hybrid for resistance to coffee leaf rust) and adding one or more new characteristics in each variation for adaptability to particular climates around Colombia. Those cultivars are: Castillo Naranjal, La Trinidad, El Rosario, Pueblo Bello, Santa Barbara, El Tambo and Paraguaicito.

The main characteristics of Castillo and its sub cultivars are higher yield, resistance to leaf rust and other diseases and a ‘dwarfed’ tree that can be planted in high density, thus increasing yields per hectare. The fruits of Castillo plants are also slightly larger and display more resistance to pests and insects such as the coffee borer beetle (broca), which is very common in Latin America.

Source: Mercanta

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Selection of „Tanganika Drought Resistant.” Bourbon-like genetic background.

GENETIC DESCRIPTION

Bourbon-Typica Group (Bourbon-related)

HISTORY

SL28 is among the most well-known and well-regarded varieties of Africa. It has consequently spread from Kenya, where it was originally selected in the 1930s, to other parts of Africa (it is important in Arabica-growing regions of Uganda, in particular) and now to Latin America. The variety is suited for medium to high altitudes and shows resistance to drought, but is susceptible to the major diseases of coffee. SL28 is notable for its rusticity—a quality meaning that it can be left untended for years or even decades at a time, and then return to successful production. There are SL28 trees in many parts of Kenya that are 60-80 years old and still productive.

SL28 was selected at the former Scott Agricultural Laboratories (now the National Agricultural Laboratories, NARL situated at Kabete—more information below). Individual tree selections made at the Scott Laboratories during the 1935-1939 period were prefixed SL. Fourty-two trees of various origins were selected and studied for yield, quality, and drought and disease resistance. SL28 was selected in 1935 from a single tree in a population called Tanganyika Drought Resistant. In 1931, the senior coffee officer of Scott Labs, A.D. Trench, conducted a tour of Tanganyika (now Tanzania). According to historical documents, he noticed a variety growing in the Moduli district that appeared to be tolerant to drought, diseases and pests. Seed was collected and brought back to Scott Laboratories, where its drought resistance was confirmed. It was widely distributed until superseded by its progeny, SL28. SL28 was considered the prize selection of this period of intensive breeding.

Recent genetic tests have confirmed that SL28 is related to the Bourbon genetic group.

History of Scott Agricultural Laboratories

Scott Agricultural Laboratories (now the National Agricultural Laboratories, NARL) was established by the colonial British government in Kenya in 1922. It conducted agricultural research and provided technical advice and training to Kenyan farmers on behalf of the Department of Agriculture. Scott Agricultural Labs employed an entomologist, a mycologist, and a plant breeder. The Coffee Section, previously housed in a central office of the department, was moved to the laboratories in 1934 and had twenty-four acres dedicated to coffee. The name of the unit was derived from the history of its buildings. Constructed in 1913 as a sanatorium and used during the First World War as a war hospital, the buildings were named for Dr. Henry Scott, a missionary from the Church of Scotland. When the Department of Agriculture took over the buildings in 1922, they named them the Scott Agricultural Laboratories. Both Scott Agricultural Laboratories in Kenya and Lyamungo Research Station in Tanganyika became the main centers for coffee breeding in East Africa.

Research was conducted at the lab and in cooperation with private estate owners. A history of the labs states: “The trial of imported varieties is a conspicuous feature of the work at the Laboratories…. Selections from individual trees showing desirable characteristics are being grown.” Other coffee work included comparative yield trials, grafting experiments, and effects of pruning, shade trials, and cover crops, among others. In 1944, Kenya decided to move coffee research to a dedicated coffee research station with better facilities for field experiments; Jacaranda Estates (20 miles north of Ruiru) with 380 acres. It became operational in 1949. Substations were also established in Upper Kiambu in 1957, Meru in 1958, Kitale in 1938, Lake Victoria in 1959, and Kisii in 1957.

STATURE

Tall

LEAF TIP COLOR

Green

BEAN SIZE

Large

COFFEE LEAF RUST

Susceptible

COFFEE BERRY DISEASE (CBD)

Susceptible

NEMATODES

Susceptible

Source: World Coffee Research

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Also called Criollo (Creole), Indio (Indian), Arábigo (Arabica), Plume Hidalgo, Blue Mountain, and Sumatra.

GENETIC DESCRIPTION

Bourbon-Typica Group (Typica-related)

HISTORY

Typica is the most famous of the Typica-descended varieties. It is a tall variety characterized by very low production, susceptibility to the major diseases, and good cup quality.

The Typica group, like all Arabica coffee, is supposed to have originated in southwestern Ethiopia. Sometime in the 15th or 16th century, it was taken to Yemen. By 1700, seeds from Yemen were being cultivated in India. In 1696 and 1699, coffee seeds were sent from the Malabar coast of India to the island of Batavia (today called Java in Indonesia). These few seeds were the ones to give rise to what we now know as the distinct Typica variety. In 1706 a single Typica coffee plant was taken from Java to Amsterdam and given a home in the botanical gardens; from there, a plant was shared with France in 1714.

From the Netherlands, Typica was sent in 1719 on colonial trade routes to Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) and then on to Cayenne (French Guiana) in 1722, and from there to the northern part of Brazil in 1727. It reached southern Brazil between 1760 and 1770. From Paris, plants were sent to to Martinique in the West Indies in 1723. The English introduced Typica coffee from Martinique to Jamaica in 1730. It reached Santo Domingo in 1735. From Santo Domingo, seeds were sent to Cuba in 1748. Later on, Costa Rica (1779) and El Salvador (1840) received seeds from Cuba.

In the late eighteenth century, cultivation spread to the Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo), Mexico and Colombia, and from there across Central America (it was grown in El Salvador as early as 1740). Until the 1940s, the majority of coffee plantations in South and Central America were planted with Typica. Because Typica is both low yielding and highly susceptible to major coffee diseases, it has gradually been replaced across much of the Americas, but is still widely planted in Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica, where it is called Jamaica Blue Mountain.

STATURE

Tall

LEAF TIP COLOR

Bronze

BEAN SIZE

Large

COFFEE LEAF RUST

Susceptible

COFFEE BERRY DISEASE (CBD)

Susceptible

NEMATODES

Susceptible

Source: World Coffee Research

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Bourbon-like genetic background.

GENETIC DESCRIPTION

Bourbon-Typica Group (Bourbon-related)

Bourbon is the most famous of the Bourbon-descended varieties. It is a tall variety characterized by relatively low production, susceptibility to the major diseases, and excellent cup quality.

French missionaries introduced Bourbon from Yemen to Bourbon Island (now La Réunion)—giving it the name it has today—in the early 1700s. Until the mid-19th century, Bourbon did not leave the island. But beginning in the mid-1800s, the variety spread to new parts of the world as the missionaries moved to establish footholds in Africa and the Americas.

The Bourbon variety was introduced to Brazil around 1860, and from there rapidly spread north into other parts of South and Central America, where it is still cultivated today. Here it became mixed with other Bourbon-related varieties, introduced from India as well as Ethiopian landraces. Nowadays, there are many Bourbon-like varieties found in East Africa, but none exactly match the distinct Bourbon variety that can be found in Latin America.

Today in Latin America, Bourbon itself has largely been replaced by varieties that descend from it (notably including Caturra, Catuai, and Mundo Novo), although Bourbon itself it is still cultivated in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru.

Modern cultivars of coffee are derived from two base populations – known as Typica/Típica and Bourbon – both of which are ascensions of Yemen and which were spread worldwide in the eighteenth century.

Around the year 1715, a few plants of Arabica were introduced by the French to the island we know today as Reunion (at that time known as Ile Bourbon) in the Indian Ocean. These Typica trees mutated on the island, giving rise to the variety that became known as Bourbon, which is more productive than its ancestor. This sole characteristic made the new variety a valuable transplant throughout Brazil (where it was taken in the late 18th century) and other parts of Central and South America, as well as on the African continent, particularly in Rwanda.

Bourbon was introduced to Brazil in the 1860s (some accounts have it as early as 1852) to make up for the supply loss caused by a coffee leaf rust outbreak in Java and is part of the reason Brazil rose to become one of the world’s coffee superproducers from that time onward.

Despite the variety’s susceptibility to rust, breeders around the world largely exploited the above mentioned varieties resulting in Typica and Bourbon-derived cultivars. Both produce exceptional cup profiles but display similar agronomic behaviours characterised by high susceptibility to many pests and low adaptability.

Bourbon grows best at heights of 1,100 to 2,000 metres above sea level. It produces a similar quality of coffee as does the Typica variety but normally yields 20% to 30% more coffee. It is, however, considered to be a variety with low productivity when compared to other common coffee plants such as the Bourbon-derived varieties Caturra, Catuaí and Pacas.

Bourbon have large, wide leaves with wavy edges and tend to have more secondary branches in comparison with other coffee trees. The berries are rather small and very thick, and can be red, yellow or pink depending on the sub-variety. Red, yellow and pink (sometimes known as orange) Bourbon are varieties with natural mutation of one recessive gene

Bourbon is valued for its complex acidity and wonderful balance. It often has a sweet, caramel quality and nice and crisp acidity but can present quite distinct flavours depending on where it is planted. El Salvador Bourbons tend to display butter, toffee, and fresh pastry; Rwandan types tend to have a punchier, fruity quality.

Yellow Bourbon

Believed to be a ‘natural’ mutation of Red Bourbon first found in Brazil in the 1930s. Read more on the history here.

Orange Bourbon

Another ‘natural’ mutation of Red Bourbon first found and developed in El Salvador. The cherries of this plant often are peachy/pink, thus it is sometimes called ‘Pink’ Bourbon.

STATURE

Tall

LEAF TIP COLOR

Green

BEAN SIZE

Average

QUALITY POTENTIAL AT HIGH ALTITUDE

Very Good

YIELD POTENTIAL

Medium

COFFEE LEAF RUST

Susceptible

COFFEE BERRY DISEASE (CBD)

Susceptible

NEMATODES

Susceptible

Source: World Coffee Research / Mercanta

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