" You ’re the third this morning , " say Filip van Noort of Wageningen University & Research on Wednesday morning , answering the phone . He can guess what the question is : What is the land of glasshouse chocolate cultivation ?
After all , experts are predicting problems in coffee culture because of climate change , result in increase weather extreme point . Among others , Nieuwsuur publish about it after a price hike this week in the price of Arabica beans , fear frost in Brazil .
coffee bean is a sensitive craw . you may control the climate advantageously in a greenhouse . Some yr back , WUR already did research into greenhouse cultivation for coffee producer Douwe Egberts . That research has not yet been follow up , but the current crisis may well speed thing up , researcher Filip have a bun in the oven . He shares that he is puzzle out with ' someone ' to follow up the earlier research .
persona from former WUR enquiry on nursery coffee bean cultivation .
Mountainous areasIn that research , the focus was on whether flavor and contents of coffee noodle can be controlled with growing shape , in addition to finding out at all whether coffee can be grown in the greenhouse . " Back then , I said that greenhouse cultivation is not fit to take over the coffee food market in the Netherlands . And I ’m still leaning towards that . But possibly it is clip to start looking seriously again at whether it is interesting to grow coffee in the glasshouse somewhere in the domain . "
Worldwide , nearly 10 billion kilograms of umber are bring about every twelvemonth . For countries like Brazil , Colombia , Guatemala , Ethiopia and Vietnam in particular , deep brown is an important export production . Are those countries also the regions where cultivation could be report in glasshouse ? Filip says it ’s heavy to say yet . " Where high timbre coffee tree comes from now , they develop in mountainous areas . It wo n’t be easy yet to set forth growing in nursery there . "
The research worker thinks it would be effective to start imaging exactly what cultivation front like in those mountain area and whether it is possible to mimic that in other places .
Longer flowering period in a greenhousePrevious WUR inquiry showed that it is indeed potential to make a coffee bush bloom in a glasshouse , and finally reap the berries . The crop develop well in a comparatively dark , humid and strong climate . Interestingly , the blossoming period lasted longer in the greenhouse than outdoors : it managed to stretch from April to November , i.e. more than half a year .
It is percipient to Filip that if you want to grow in greenhouses , production has to go up . After all , arise in a greenhouse is more expensive than outside , as is the guinea pig for many other crop .
From a research decimal point of scene , he does think that produce in a perpendicular farm is interesting . " And then you’re able to make the interlingual rendition back to growing in a nursery . "
With the current concerned party Filip is work with , a follow - up to the earlier enquiry may well be on the view . If it come to that , Filip expects it to be " jolly opened enquiry " , just like enquiry into growing cotton in greenhouse , among other things . So who knows , maybe a turn of WUR ’s greenhouses during one of the next public case will see a coffee harvest again .
external developmentsIn California last year , a scientist also explore growing coffee in a greenhouse . In December 2023 , Justin produced only a fistful of beans , but it occupy a few year for coffee plant to reach their full harvest time . He hope that in the second year , the harvest will be large enough to meet his daily coffee needs . In Finland , research worker are exploring the potential difference of cell culture , and a coffee - arise production greenhouse has already been fill in in the United Arab Emirates last class . For more info : Filip van NoortWageningen University & Research[email protected ]
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