Abstract

ENCALADA-CORDOVA, Max; SOTO-CARRENO, Francisco; MORALES-GUEVARA, Donaldo  and  ALVAREZ-BELLO, Idioleydis. Influence of light on some physiological characteristics of coffee (Coffea arabica L. cv. Caturra) in nursery conditions. cultrop [online]. 2016, vol.37, n.4, pp.89-97. ISSN 0258-5936.  http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.10544.76801.

The coffee tree is cultivated in the shade or in sunlight, hence the importance of studying its  growth and physiological behavior in different light conditions. To contribute to that knowledge, in the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (INCA) Cuba to 130 m s. n. m. has been made an experiment under nursery conditions with four light levels (100, 70, 50 and 20 %). The following indicators was evaluated: total dry mass and organs, leaf area, chlorophyll content, stomatal density and leaf anatomy. A sampling design was used for data processing and analysis of variance, confidence intervals and regressions were performed. The results showed that the positions grown with 20 % of light had higher values in terms of dry mass and leaf area. The largest contribution to the total dry mass was given by the leaves and roots; the specific leaf area was lower in the level of 100 % of light, followed by 50 % with significant differences. Stomatal density was higher in treating of  100 % of light, differing significantly from the others. Chlorophyll content was higher in the positions with less lighting, being the highest level of 50 % with a significant difference from the other treatments. These results indicate that morphological and physiological changes were produced in response to light restriction, which demonstrate the resilience of coffee to effectively utilize the available light

Keywords : coffee; chlorophyll; growth; lighting; shade.

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