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Shade tree canopy cover affects coffee plant traits across elevations in coffee farms in southwest Ethiopia

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

Coffee is an important crop in the global south. However, ongoing changes in the climate system reinforce the need to quantify coffee plants' ecological and eco-physiological traits to assure coffee production in the future. One way to assess how environmental changes affect coffee performance is via leaf traits, most notably leaf carbon and nitrogen concentrations (to reflect the nutrient status), leaf stable carbon isotope composition (delta C-13) to determine intrinsic water use efficiency (WUEi), and specific leaf area (SLA) to describe carbon gain relative to water loss within a plant canopy as these traits are related to yields. Therefore, we sampled coffee plants growing at contrasting elevations using a space-for-time substitution approach for warming and superimposed a canopy cover gradient to assess whether increasing canopy cover could modulate responses to temperature. Three coffee shrubs were sampled in each of 59 coffee farms in southwest Ethiopia across elevations of 1500-2160 m a.s.l. and along canopy cover gradients from open to deep shade. Soil nutrient concentrations, light availability, soil temperature and moisture were quantified for each coffee shrub. Elevation and shade tree canopy cover significantly and interactively affected WUEi. Elevation was found to be the driving factor for microclimate and soil factors which indirectly influenced both SLA and WUEi. Both of these coffee leaf traits are moderately governed by soil temperature whereas leaf N and C:N are mainly controlled by soil temperature and soil chemical variables. As elevation increased, WUEi kept increasing at light (< 35%) to intermediate shade levels (35-65%), and the values decreased at dense shade levels (65-100%) at high elevations, suggesting that coffee plants growing at high elevations with light shade can assimilate more CO2 with minimum evaporative water loss. SLA declined with elevation. Leaf N and leaf C:N responded negatively and positively to shade canopy cover, respectively. In sum, elevation and canopy cover interactively determined microclimate and coffee leaf traits. Our findings are useful to adjust the intensity of shade, along with other tree-level management tools, to modulate climate-change effects on coffee at the farm level.
Journal: NORDIC JOURNAL OF BOTANY
ISSN: 1756-1051
Issue: 2
Volume: 2022
Publication year:2022
Accessibility:Closed