Alright so I think you are all ready for another lesson. Today we will be learning about pruning. Pruning is one of the most important cultural practices in the coffee orchard. The main objectives of pruning are to control the biennial bearing through the control of flowering and fruit setting, to regulate the age of the bearing portion of the tree, and to maintain the productivity of the tree. There are two systems of pruning currently practiced in Hawaii. They are the "Kona method" and Beaumont-Fukunaga (BF) method. We'll get into that in a bit.
The degree of pruning is determined by the amount of rainfall as well as the previous years crop yield and current crop load. This year we have suffered from low rainfall which has resulted in a light growth of the bearing wood so the pruning and fertilizing should be light which will result in this years crop being light.
On Dragon's Lair the farm is split into an upper field and a lower field. On the upper field we prune according to Kona style and on the lower field we use the BF method.
The Kona style:
Kona style pruning is a multiple age vertical system. This system accomplishes the main objectives of pruning as well as admitting light to various parts of the tree, encouraging the type of growth and fruiting that will provide the easiest hand harvest with the least reduction of yield, and encouraging the production of uniform high grade cherry. The negatives to this style are that annual hand pruning is required and a good understanding of the system is essential in knowing which verticals to remove. No vertical stays on our trees longer than 4 years. So each year the oldest/tallest vertical is cut to encourage new growth.
The Beaumont-Fukanaga method:
John Beaumont and Edward Fukanaga developed this system at the Kona Research Station in the 1940's and 50's. Instead of renewing one vertical in each successive year as in the Kona style, all the verticals on the tree are renewed in the same year, every 3-5 years. In other words the tree is stumped. The advantages to this style of pruning are simplicity of pruning (the rows containing the trees with the oldest verticals are stumped each year), and ease of harvest (fewer rows are harvested, trees are shorter, and fruit is on primary laterals.
Now are you ready for your quiz?
2 comments:
I thought of you the other night as I was watching a documentary on Ethiopian coffee farmers. As you know, I don’t have cable which means my reception is bad which, in turn, means that I could not read the subtitles which means that to comprehend anything I had to interpret Ethiopian coffee farmer gesticulations. With this in mind, the points that I understood were: 1. Ethiopian coffee farmers have it bad, 2. this is a result of the consortium of assholes who control the coffee commodity markets, 3. the way to get around said assholes is to create a consistent, quality coffee bean that is sold directly to a buyer(s) (instead of dealing with the commodities market). Is this how you guys work in that you sell directly to a buyer on contract?
Also, sorry it has taken so long to communicate. Things have been crazy
Hello,
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