DailyCelestialChallenge Saturday - Agriculture (Cultivation of coffee, a magic grain)

rafagonzalezlp (25)in #celestialchallenge • 7 years ago

Note: @sirknight started a contest and its daily theme's are:

Coffee trees (Coffea) are a genus that contains around one hundred specific taxa and infraspecific accepted, 1 of the almost 400 described plants of the family Rubiaceae, native to South Asia and subtropical Africa. They are cultivated extensively by their seeds that are used, ground and roasted, for the elaboration of coffee, a stimulating drink; The popularity of this makes the economic importance of the coffee tree is extraordinary, being one of the most important plant products in the global market.

The coffee probably originated in present-day Ethiopia, although other studies point to Yemen. Coffee became popular around the 13th century as a stimulant drink, possibly following the Islamic prohibition against alcoholic beverages. For several centuries its cultivation was kept in secret; the first description of the data file of 1583, by the German botanist Leonhard Rauwolf. Shortly afterwards, in 1650, his cultivation was introduced in India through a pilgrim back from Mecca with a handful of schools.

European settlers spread the plant in America to supply the demand in Europe. Although substitutes were tried, such as chicory root (Cichorium intybus) to partially supply the need for import, the demand did not stop increasing.

The coffee tree is a shrub or small tree, evergreen, with a straight shaft that can reach 10 meters in the wild; in crops they are usually kept in a smaller size, around 3 meters. The leaves are elliptical, dark and coriaceous. Blooms from the third or fourth year of growth, producing axillary inflorescences, fragrant, white or pinkish; some species, especially Coffea arabica, are capable of self-fertilization, while others, such as Coffea robusta, are pollinated by insects. The fruit is a drupe, which develops in about 15 weeks after flowering; the endosperm begins to develop from the twelfth week, and will accumulate solid matter over the course of several months, attracting almost all of the energy produced by photosynthesis. The mesocarp forms a sweet and aromatic pulp, reddish in color, which ripens in about 35 weeks from flowering. The coffee tree requires a lot of moisture to bear fruit; He prefers high ground, and is not resistant to frost. The species C. arabica is the most demanding in terms of climatic conditions and soil fertility; although it is the one that produces the best fruit, it is replaced, usually by C. robusta, when the conditions are not optimal. In a favorable situation, the coffee tree produces fruit for 50 or 60 years, with a yield of 800 to 1400 kilos per hectare. It is estimated that world production comes from some 15 billion copies, occupying more than 100,000 km² of plantations.