Guatemala’s National Coffee Association, or Anacafe, announced the existence of a new coffee variety resistant to the leaf rust fungus.
The plant, dubbed Anacafe-14, was presented Friday at the 25th National Coffee Congress, the organization said in a press release.
The new variety was created naturally in 1984 by a cross between Pacamara and Catimor plants near the village of El Tesoro, 206 kilometers (128 miles) from Guatemala City in Chiquimula province on the Honduran border.
The result of the natural hybridisation produced “a sturdy plant” with “larger fruit,” Anacafe said.
The organization found, after six years of researching the soil, the climate and other factors, “valuable characteristics” in the variety, such as “resistance to roya and the drought,” along with “excellent vegetative vigour” and “high productivity.”
The coffee leaf rust (or roya in Spanish) damaged crops on 70 percent of Guatemalan plantations in 2012 and 40 percent in 2013.
