Research in: Agricultural & Veterinary Sciences

Abstract: Coffee berry disease (CBD) still remains a limiting factor in the production of Coffea arabica in Ethiopia. This current study was carried out to evaluate C. arabica accessions from southern Ethiopia for their reaction to the disease under field and laboratory conditions. Seventy-six C. arabica accessions and four CBD resistant varieties as checks were evaluated on already established coffee plants in 2015. Disease average infection, percent severity index and area under disease progress curve were calculated. Coffea arabica accessions significantly differed in their resistance to CBD both at field and laboratory conditions. Accordingly, fourteen accessions were identified from visual assessment for attached berry test, detached berry and seedling hypocotyls tests. In attached berry test, eight accessions showed low level (<30%) of CBD infection and relatively resistant, whereas five accessions were found to be resistant under laboratory conditions. The present study demonstrated the role of host resistance in combating CBD in the study areas. The future research work should focus on evaluating the promising coffee accessions in multi-locations and multi-years field trials as well as further studies on the resistance mechanisms of these accessions to the CBD causal pathogen.