Béatrice Gervais-Bergeron PLNT 310 – plant propagations’ video project April 15th 2016 Video Summary Propagation of Coffea arabica (Coffee) by stem cuttings Coffea arabica Coffee is native to Ethiopia (Africa) and grows in tropical regions with alternating dry and rain seasons. The plant presents straight and horizontal branches. The vertical branches are orthotropic while lateral branches are plagiotropic in orientation. The fruits from on the horizontal branches. Coffea Arabica is mainly propagated by seeds. However, to propagate it by stem cuttings, the use of orthotropic shoots is recommended, since cuttings from the lateral branches will maintain plagiotropic growth habits (Coste, 1992). Figure 1- Coffea Arabica - http://cimbaliuk.com/ Questions 24-coffee-facts-and-stats-for-advent/ - Which treatments accelerate and increase the rooting? - Do stem cuttings from plagiotropic (lateral) branches roots as well as the orthotropic (horizontal) branches? - Do coffee grounds improve the rooting of the cuttings, since it is a coffee product? Experiment 11 treatments were prepared with 10 single-node cuttings each, illustrated in Table 1. These factors were tested: softwood, semi-hardwood and shoot tip, plagiotropic and orthotropic branches, different rooting hormone concentrations, and a medium with coffee grounds. Table 1 - Béatrice Gervais-Bergeron PLNT 310 – plant propagations’ video project April 15th 2016 Results Stem single-node cuttings Treatments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Number of rooted 3 0 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 5 cuttings Observations Hormones: - Rooting hormone #2 and #3 seemed to increase rotting - Hormone #1 did not promote roots, but the survival rate was good in this treatment - Similar rooting occurred with no hormone, #2, and #3 Coffee ground: A single-node cutting has only one - No difference between media, with or without grounds node and leaf. Both extremities of Cuttings’ origin: your cutting should be cut near a node, since those areas contain the - Orthotropic cuttings survived and rooted more than the more active tissues and thus will plagiotropic ones (Fig.2) favor the rooting (Hartman et al. - No difference was observed between softwood, semi- 2011). hardwood and shoot tips cuttings. They all rooted in similar proportions. Figure 3 – The cuttings in the mist chamber. Figure 2 – The 5 rooted cuttings of treatment 11, from orthotropic shoots. Acknowledge Thank you to the greenhouse’s team for their help and support, as well as to Raeina Fan for her video tutorial and advice. A special thanks to Danielle Donnelly and Christie-Anna Lovat for sharing their knowledge and time. References Coste, R. 1992. Coffee, the plant and the product. The macmillan press ltd. London, United Kingdom. 328 p. Hartmann, H. T., Kester, D. E., Davies, F. T. and R. L. Geneve. 2011. Hartmann & Kester's plant propagation: principles and practices. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA. 915 pp. .