Coffee Research
9 March 2009
There's something alluring about farming the old fashioned way. An old
Ford truck parked out in a field seems idyllic. Juan Valdez and his
donkey seem like they're living the simple life. Life on a Kona coffee
farm must be so relaxing and fun. Of course reality is a bit different.
Juan Valdez is a fictional character created by the Colombian
government in 1959 as a marketing campaign. Very few modern farmers
own donkeys. Even Colombian coffee farmers prefer a nice, reliable
pickup truck if they can afford one. And a modern fuel-injected,
all-wheel-drive F350 can easily out-perform that old Ford left over
from the 1960's.
Today's professional farms are far more productive than ever before.
There's no way Juan and his donkey could harvest the huge quantities of
coffee that modern farms can. Not only are our machines better but
science has also given us powerful tools to help manage pest, disease
and soil nutrition.
I don't immediately embrace every new idea that comes along but I do
want to know my options so I recently spent two days at a meeting on
coffee research. The meeting was organized by HCGA (Hawaii Coffee
Growers Association), CTAHR
(
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii),
and HARC ( Hawaii Agricultural
Research Center). The meeting consisted mostly of several scientists
presenting their current research as well as asking for feedback on possible
future research needs. Topics included pest control, ground cover, shade
grown, agronomy, GMO, coffee hybrids and several other topics. I'm fairly
well versed on many of the topics but there was still plenty of information that
went right over my head.
Not all research is needed right away but that doesn't mean it's not
necessary. Hawaii is the only place in the world that doesn't suffer from the
coffee rust fungus,
or coffee borer beetle
and we'd like to keep it that way. There are strict agricultural import
laws but that won't protect us forever. Thankfully, much of the research
being done at HARC will prepare us for these and other eventual problems.
Besides trying to avoid potential disasters, some researchers are also looking
into how to increase yields and decrease costs while maintaining coffee
quality. This seems to scare some people because it often involves
things like fertilizer, pesticides and maybe even hybrid plants.
Personally, when used properly, I don't think any of these things are too
scary and I'm glad there are well educated people looking into the pros and
cons for me.
Another controversial topic is GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms). Genetic
engineering (GE) does basically the same thing we've been doing for millenia with
hybrids except GE can target individual genes directly. By modifying a single
gene at a time, a GMO plant can be largely unchanged with the exception of one or
two specific traits. For example, genetic enginnering can make plants frost
resistant or less susceptible to certain pests.
I'm no expert so I'll save a more lengthy discussion of GMO for later. The
short version, concerning coffee, is that there isn't really any dramatic news
yet. Some research has been done on uniform ripening which would allow the
crop to be harvested all at once.
Research has also been done on making a caffeine free coffee bean. Nature
has already produced a plant that produces caffeine free coffee beans but the
coffee tastes horrible. A GMO plant may eventually produce better
decaffeinated coffee than the current chemical decaffeination processes
can. Neither of these things are being done on a commercial scale yet and
they may never happen. Coffee related GMO research doesn't receive nearly
the funding and interest that other crops do.
After all the presentations we had the opportunity to tour the labs
where the scientists work. The molecular biology lab has a
"gene gun".
I was wondering if the gene gun serves the same purpose as adding a little
chlorine to the gene pool but apparently it doesn't. The gene gun
is used to inject cells with genetic information. I know a few people
that could use a little extra genetic information but I was told that the
gene gun won't help with that either. I won't pretend to understand
how the gene gun works. I did get to see it in action though. It
was rather undramatic, nothing but a little pop noise. To me, the little
green dot looked exactly the same after she fired the gun as it did
before. I was hoping for a three-eyed frog to come jumping out or
something but no such luck.
During the tour we also had the opportunity to look at some root knot
nematodes. These are microscopic little worms that can devastate an
entire coffee field. As a Kona coffee farmer, I'm afraid of root knot
nematodes. I've had my soil tested and am happy to say that I don't
currently have a problem but I still hate the little buggers.
Nematodes are completely natural and organic but Kona coffee might have
died out if researchers hadn't figured out how to control them. I
enjoyed looking at the nematodes under the microscope where they seemed
to be squirming uncomfortably in the hot light.
After the lab tours we drove out to the research field. It was
interesting to see all the different types of coffee trees they have.
Some looked really weak while others looked super healthy and loaded
with coffee beans. They had all sorts of different hybrids and grafted
trees. One of the best ways to control nematodes is with grafted
trees. It's common to graft Kona Typica onto Fukunaga (a liberica root
stock) but some of the plants at the research center may turn out to be
even better.
We ended the two day meeting with a tour of the Waialua coffee farm owned by
Dole. When I was visiting
Oahu with the family a couple months ago I commented that I would like to
take a tour of the Dole coffee farm. We didn't stop because I wasn't
interested in the tourist tour, I wanted an insider coffee farmer tour.
This time, not only did I get an insider tour but I was there with several
other coffee farmers. It was great to talk shop with the head manager
instead of just listening to the typical sales pitch.
It seems like two days isn't all that long but by the time I got home I
felt like it had been a week. I still need to review the detailed
notes from the various presentations. Then I will take the most
interesting parts and figure out how to present it to other Kona coffee
farmers. I may also expand on some of the subjects here. Some of
the technical details can get a bit complex and, dare I say it, boring.
You may need to be ready with a fresh cup of Kona coffee.
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