FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
As well stated by Barros et al. (1999) and more recently by Da Matta and Ramalho (2006) gaps in our knowledge in the eco-physiology of coffee are numerous. To understand the control of vegetative and reproductive growth by the environment and how endogenous factors play a role in these processes is essential to grow coffee and increase the productivity. This becomes more important if we consider the
different management systems of cultivation like irrigation and planting density and in the Brazilian case, the expansion of the coffee crop to regions before considered margi-
nal or inapt for coffee cultivation due to excess of temperature, like the Brazilian savannah (Cerrado).