SELEÇÃO DE CLONES DE COFFEA CANEPHORA PARA O PROCESSO DE COLHEITA MECANIZADA NO NORTE DO ESPÍRITO SANTO

Abstract

This work aims to select clones of conilon coffee for the mechanized harvesting process. The study was carried out in a commercial coffee plantation in the city of São Mateus. The coffee trees were planted at a spacing of 3.5 between cultivation lines and 0.5 between plants. The characteristics were evaluated: Productivity in 60kg bags benefited per hectare (sc.ha^-1); Defoliation in kg of leaf mass detached from the plots after harvest (kg.ha^-1); and percentage of dead plants per plot (%). Mechanical harvesting was done using a CaseIH coffee harvester model Coffee Express 200. Mixed linear models were applied in complete blocks with 27 genotypes, two replications, two harvests, and two environments. The components of variance, predicted genetic values ​​and confidence intervals were estimated. The genetic diversity of the clones was analyzed based on the genetic values ​​through the Mahalanobis statistical distance matrix followed by the UPGMA and the Modified Tocher clustering. There was no interaction of genotypes with the environment. The clones Tardio 9, Tardio 2, Intermediário 9, Precoce 6 and Tardio 3 presented the highest productivity and low plant mortality. The largest estimated distance was 37.56 between the Tardio 9 and Intermediário 7 accesses and the smallest was 0.00 between the Tardio 1 and Precoce 6 accesses. Tocher's cluster formed seven groups in which the clones Tardio 9, Tardio 6, Precoce 2 and Intermediário 9 were isolated.