Screening of Limu Coffee Selection for Its Quality

Abstract

Coffee production and supply with excellent quality appear more crucial than ever before for coffee exporting countries. The objective of the study was to screening of Limu coffee landraces selection for acceptable raw and good cup quality for variety development. The study was carried out for three consecutive season starting to 2007/8 to 2009/10 on sixty two Limu landrace accessions and two standard checks. Six kg red ripe coffee cherries collected from each coffee type and prepared under wet processing method at Gera and Agaro. Raw quality (40%); cup quality (60%) and overall quality out of 100 were evaluated. The significant mean difference between treatments mean was compared using LSD at 5% probability level. Highest raw quality value 37.61 at Agaro and 37.50 at Gera were recorded for coffee accession L18/2001and L51/2001respectively. The highest cup quality value 43.11 was recorded for coffee accession L13/2001 at Agaro. At Gera the cup quality was ranging from 46.67 for L16/2001. The significant variations total overall quality in each location was achieved. Coffee accession L16/2001 was showed the highest value (81.67) total quality at Gera; whereas L13/2001 was best for total quality (79.11) at Agaro research site. The considerable variation among accession both for green bean physical and cup quality characteristics shows an opportunity to select coffee accession with desirable quality characteristics. Regardless of productivity and disease resistant character it can be recommended coffee accession having the total quality above 73.00% for the Limu and similar agro ecology.

Keywords: Coffee accession, Cup quality, Limu landrace, Overall quality, Raw quality.