Coffee agroforestry systems in Central America: I. A review of quantitative information on physiological and ecological processes

Abstract

Coffee is widely grown across Central America at altitudes between 600 and 2500 m, mostly in association with trees that provide shade and other services. Research on coffee agroforestry systems has identified many environmental factors, management strategies and plant characteristics that affect growth, yield and environmental impact of the system. Much of this literature only presents qualitative estimates of the importance of the different growth determining factors, or highly site-specific estimates. Quantitative information is required to allow statistical analysis or the construction of process-based models of the system. Here, we review the available quantitative information for the latter purpose, with emphasis on the data needs for modelling agroforestry systems common in Central America. Process-based models require environmental data-weather, soil-and data on the physiological characteristics of the coffee plants and trees. Our review showed that the current literature is insufficient to allow full parameterisation of a process-based model for any coffee-tree combination. Information on weather, coffee and trees is highly limited, but soil information seems more adequate. A regional network of replicated multi-factorial experiments, focusing on the interactive effects of different environmental factors, may help address the main knowledge gaps. (Résumé d'auteur

Coffee agroforestry systems in Central America: II. Development of a simple process-based model and preliminary results

“…To more closely examine the importance of differences in weather, we ran the model for the 24 Central American sites above 600 m altitude in the FAOC-LIM weather database (Van Oijen et al 2010). The sites differ in all weather variables: temperature, radiation, rain, wind, humidity.…”

“…Our model is a compromise between these two extremes. The grid cell approach seemed unfeasible given the scarcity of information about the horizontal distribution of crowns and root systems (Van Oijen et al 2010). However, the single-area approach was Fig.…”

“…Here, we take the view that model complexity should be commensurate with data availability. In a companion paper (Van Oijen et al 2010), we reviewed the availability of quantitative information on coffee agroforestry systems, and concluded that parameters for many physiological and ecological processes are not well known. We therefore aim for a simple model, realising that ongoing research may justify adding complexity at a later stage.…”

Coffee mucilage impact on young coffee seedlings and soil microorganisms

“…In Colombia and Central America, C. arabica is often planted on soils derived from volcanic ashes that are slightly acidic. Andosols are the most common type ( Wintgens , ; van Oijen et al., ), which are nutrient rich but contain considerable contents of Al and Fe oxides ( Khan and Joergensen , ). The German soil used in this study proved to have many of the physical and biological characteristics of the soils usually destined for coffee plantations in Colombia and Central America ( Wintgens , ; Joergensen , ).…”

DynACof: A process-based model to study growth, yield and ecosystem services of coffee agroforestry systems

“…However, several factors make these systems challenging to model. First, there are many options for shade management with highly heterogeneous canopies, ranging from free growing, and low-density shade trees like Cordia alliodora to high density, heavily managed low trees such as banana trees or pollarded Erythrina poeppigiana trees (van Oijen et al, 2010a). Second, the coffee reproductive phenology is a complex process that lasts for about two years (Camargo and Camargo, 2001), with competition between reproductive and vegetative compartments (Charbonnier et al, 2017) and bienniality at the plant scale (Schnabel et al, 2018).…”