Abstract:
Coffee culture in São Paulo is done by planting 3, 4, 5 or even, more seedlings in each bed (cova). This is very troublesome specially for coffee selection work. Thus, it was found necessary to plant certain area of ground using just a single seedlingin .each bed (cova). 1.107 coffee trees of Coffea arabica var. bourbon were planted in quadrangle, 3 meters apart frcm each other occupying 1 Ha. of.land. (1931, April). 2. Tilling, fertilizing, harvesting were the same for every individual plant. The results of 7 years work, since the first remarkable crop was harvested in 1933, are presented in this paper. Harvest was done twice or three times yearly, when the berries were ripe. 3. Average production totaled 6 5 . 7 0 arrobas (each arroba equals. 15 Kgrs.) of clean coffee per hectare of land. 4. The data obtained showed enormous variability in the coffee plants. Several individuals were very poor yielders, others suffered die- b a c k in consequence of over production and still others producing hea- vily in one year dropped it in the next, but by putting. forth new shoots and new leaves reacted well so that a good crop was obtained again in the following year. Finally some bore fruit during the whole span of the experiment and did not show great variation in production from one year to the next. 5. The Departament of Genetics of the Instituto Agronômico making use of the data obtained marked several individuals for progeny tests.
