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Characteristics | Coffee farm management intensity systems (management intensity classes/categories) |
Extensive-traditional coffee fields | Intensive-organic coffee fields | Intensive-commercial coffee fields |
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Shade cover (%) and shading regimes | Shaded coffee fields: >51–70% shade cover | Moderately shaded coffee fields: >11–50% shade | Sunny coffee fields: 0–10% shade |
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Type of the coffee field | Small-scale coffee fields | Small-scale coffee fields | Small-scale fields |
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Farm management system | Traditional farms | Organic farms | Commercial farms |
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Agroforestry shading trees | (i) Mixed natural shading trees (ii) Traditional system fully shaded and with rustic management systems, where dense native trees are associated with coffee primarily to provide the shade. (iii) Coffee plantations are often located beneath the canopy of native and remnant tropical forest tree species and the vegetation in the lower strata is often not removed | (i) Mixture of coffee with native shade tree species, plantations of diverse, and abundant indigenous (agroforestry/apiary) tree species to provide shade to coffee. (ii) More than 3–13 multipurpose tree species are associated with coffee trees and planted between rows of coffee trees at density of 50–200 stems/ha on average | (i) Modern small-scale coffee farming systems characterized by coffee genotypes (cultivars) grown in sunny environments. (ii) Shade tree species are associated with coffee trees at a density of 3–20 stems/ha planted at the boarder of the coffee farm. (iii) In most case, there are no shade trees associated with coffee trees |
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Coffee plant size (height) | Long to medium plant trees: 3–5 m height | Long to medium plant trees: 3–5 m height | Short size of coffee plant trees: 2-3 m height |
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Age at harvest, productivity, and life span of trees | (i) Generally set buds at 4 to 5 years after plantation. (ii) Coffee trees have a productivity life of >30 years | Productivity of 10–20 years | (i) Age at the time of first harvest is 3–5 years. (ii) Productivity of 10–20 years |
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Coffee plant density | Low density: 100–1500 coffee plants/ha | Moderated density: 500 to 1500 coffee plants/ha | High density: 600–10000 coffee plants/ha |
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Coffee yield (t/ha) | Low | High | High |
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Coffee tree yield (Kg/tree) | High yield | Low to moderate yield | Moderated yield |
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Quality of coffee bean | Higher | Medium | Lower to higher |
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Application of agrochemicals | No use of chemical and organic pesticides | No use of artificial chemical pesticides but intensive use of organic or natural pesticides/fertilizers | Intensive use of chemical pesticides/fertilizers |
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Pruning regime |
Light to no pruning regime | Light pruning regime | Heavy pruning systems
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Seasonality in labour utilization | Seasonal labor utilization | Seasonal labor utilization | Year round and intensive use of labor |
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Vegetation temperature | Low air and soil temperature | Low to moderated temperature of soils and vegetation | High air and soil temperatures |
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Litter production | High leaf litter | High leaf litter | Low leaf litter |
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Disease and pests incidence | Low to moderated incidence of diseases and pests | Low to moderated incidence of diseases and pests | High to moderated incidence of disease and pests |
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Incidence of insect pollinators | High incidence of insect pollinators | High incidence of insect pollinators | Low to moderate incidence of pollinators |
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Vegetation structural complexity | Highly complex | Complex | Low structural complexity |
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Level of weed cover | Low weed cover | Low weed cover | High weed cover |
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Intercropping (polyculture/monoculture) systems | Coffee is intercropped with two to five annual/biannual crops and with one perennial crop (banana) | (i) Integration of coffee production systems with beekeeping activities and with zero grazing to produce local cow-dung and organic manures. (ii) In most cases, coffee is mixed with Vanilla that uses coffee trees as stake since it is a climber crop species | In rare cases, commercial coffee fields are mixed with two to three subsistence annual/subannual crop species |
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Expected performance of the coffee management system | Traditional coffee farms are likely to contribute significantly to the conservation of biodiversity in farmlands of Uganda. However, these coffee fields are generally poorly managed. Farmers invest less time in the production of coffee. Farmers do no specific management to improve the coffee production. Here, coffee is not the primary objective of the producer but probably coffee is cultivated to produce additional cash to the family | Coffee is grown beneath the native forest canopy together with several other crop plant species for local subsistence (beans, cassava, maize, sweet potatoes, bananas, avocados, oranges, etc.). The system is likely to enhance biodiversity in agricultural landscapes since it is managed intensively by using natural products as inputs
| This system is almost a small-scale intensive monoculture system. Since coffee is grown with a lot of inputs, it is expected that yield from this coffee production system would be higher than that in traditional and in commercial systems |
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