Coffea canephora (= C. robusta). (Rubiaceae), coffee. Coffee has been a
dominant component of agroforestry systems until about 1940, when cultivation
was abandoned. But it has recently been re-established. Coffee is planted
from seedlings collected from neglected plantations on the upper parts of the
slope, under a light canopy of durian. During the early years of establishment,
young coffee trees are associated with banana and papaya trees; at the same
time young Toona trees as well as some Pterospemum, Alangium, Leucaena
and Actinodaphne are planted within the coffee stand. The stand is manured
with decomposed pericarp of durian fruits. Pruning of coffee trees is not a
common practice. The level of production is generally low: an average of
120 kg of dry fruit per ha. The peak of production is in July-August, although
there is some fruiting all over the year. There is no sole crop stand
of coffee in these agroforests. After the dramatic decline in coffee economy
in the 1930s, peasants have become careful to associate coffee (and commercial
crops in general) with fruit trees and wood species that have a long
and proven history in the socio-cultural set up of the villages, so that these
trees act as shade trees for coffee and improve the total output from the
garden land.