Plant Anatomy and Morphology

Plants are highly organized and contain many specialized organs and tissues. Understanding the anatomy and morphology of plants provides a foundation for understanding how plants look, grow, and ultimately produce food. It is also important in developing plant management and pest control strategies for optimizing crop yield. Morphology deals with the form and structure of plants. The plant morphological features we typically see are the flowers, roots, stems, and leaves. Plant anatomy is the study of the internal tissues and cells of plants. The epidermis, vascular system, meristems, and ground tissues are important types of tissues that are constructed of individual, specialized cells. 

The coffee growing areas receive high rainfall (over 900 mm) and have very fertile arable soils. The main objective of crop physiology, is to find how the morphological characteristics and the physiological activities of crops interact with the environment to determine yield. Coffee being an extremely valuable cash crop, various workers have tried to add knowledge to accomplish this objective.

A well known feature of arabica coffee is the existence of two types of branches:

Orthogeotropric, commonly called suckers which grow vertically;

Plagiogeotropic branches, commonly called primaries which are placed at 45-90^o in relation to the main axis.

Primary branches give rise to secondary branches which split to tertiary branches and which also branch to form quaternary branches. Suckers which originate after part of the main stem is excised are axillary. Sucker regeneration can be induced by partial ringing of the bark tissue just above the point of stumping. Sucker development was found to be under the influence of apical dominance. 

Nutman (1933) carried out a very extensive study on roots of coffee trees in Kenya and Tanzania, and proposed a common pattern for coffee roots. In the same paper he listed some of the factors which affect growth, spatial distribution and nature of roots. These factors were soil conditions, including soil reaction, a high water-table and overburden pressure. The typical root system consists of a taproot, axial roots which run vertically downward below the trunk of the tree; lateral roots, some of which are more or less parallel to the soil surface (surface plate roots), and others which are of deeper origin than roots of the surface plate and ramify evenly in the soil sometimes becoming verticals, feeder bearers evenly distributed and feeders borne uniformly on feeder bearers at all depths.

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Nutman FJ. 1933. The root system of Coffee Arabica L. Emp. J. Exp. Agriculture 1,271-285.

Root-lesion nematodes are among the most common and damaging to coffee. Aside from root-knot nematodes and a few other generations. The genus Pratylenchus is comprised of 97 valid spieces of worldwide distribution and economic importance, which parasitize a wide variety of plant spieces. Members of this genus are called root-lesion nematodes because they produce lesions on feeder roots and occasionally on other underground plant parts as a result of their feeding. They are sometimes referred to as meadow nematodes due to their frequent occurrence in that environment.

Production process

As most agricultural commodities, coffee starts with as seed which becomes a plant and eventually the seed of the berries from this plant becomes coffee. Since coffee flourish under tropical conditions, all coffee is produced around the equator. The scale of production and automation varies per county, area and farmer. However, the high quality coffee is usually sourced at small-scale farms and the berries are most commonly picked by hand. The reason for this is that only human can select the berries which are ripen enough.

Processing is usually done at a central location or at a large coffee farm. Most small scale coffee farmers can’t afford the needed equipment and don’t have enough knowledge about the process. The processing of the beans starts with depulping. Berries and seeds are separated in this process. The peels or berry residues are used as fertilizer. The seeds are washed with water and left in large basins to ferment. This takes few days. After the process of fermenting, the beans are washed again and then left to dry on large concrete floors. It is essential to rotate and move the beans regularly in order to get good quality coffee beans, good drying avoids rotting. Once the beans are dried properly, they are selected, usually a large sieve is used to do so. This is done in order to separate the hulls and the then they are packed and stored.

Coffee roasters source green coffee beans from coffee farmers all over the world. Blanche Dael’s strategy includes the acquisition of plantations with high quality coffee. Once they find one, then they buy it, by making a contract with the farmer via an intermidiate. In that way, they can be sure that this particular type of coffee can only be sold by their company. Efico agency acts as a mediator between the company and the farmers. Efico is a Belgium company based in Zeebrugge. This company contracts the coffee farmers and manage the collection and shipping to Europe.

Once the coffee arrives at the store it’s stored in the bales in which they are transported. This occurs in the warehouse basement of the processing station. There, imported coffee beans pokes are stored until they are relocated at the processing floor. The maximum storage period is 6 to 8 weeks. Storage is essential for coffee beans quality preservation. It is important to keep it away from excessive air, moisture, heat, and light. In that way, one can maintain the freshness and natural flavors of coffee for much longer. As referred to previous chapter, Blanche Dael is the only company in Maastricht that chooses to grind the coffee at the moment of sale. Therefore, the company focuses only on how to store the coffee beans.

The company uses high tech new and relatively old machinery during the process. As the manager explained, the machines might be old but the final outcome of the process is satisfactory. They use a slow coffee roasting process, something that separates them from bigger size companies.

Timing is an important factor during the process, because if you roast the bean even a few seconds more than required, then the flavor can differ dramatically. Coffee beans are put into the machine, where temperature is controlled in order to remove oily “stamps” from the beans. Then the beans are cooled. From there they are transferred in the next part of the machinery, where air lifts up the light material within the coffee and only lets coffee beans on the ground. Finally, the coffee beans are separated and put on a different chamber. The company’s top priority from the process is flavor. This is achieved firstly by the inputs (coffee beans) and secondly by the design of a process that preserves the coffee’s freshness, aroma and flavor.

Roasted beans are packed after they are cooled. Packing is done in special designed packs made of paper with a thin plastic layer to prevent the coffee for loss of flavor. The bags are not sealed yet, once they are old at the shop, the beans are grinded and repacked in this same bag. Then this bag is sealed.

Value is added in all the steps as shown in figure 1, but the major steps of value adding are the first process steps, so depupling to the packing off green beans and roasting and packing of the roasted beans. The latter one ads the most value to the beans.
Figure 1:

Classifying and Naming Crops

Agronomy is the production of field crops while sustaining the soil resource and the environment. The word agronomy comes from the Greek words agros (field) and nomos (to manage). Most field crops are ultimately used for food production, but hey have other important uses. To facilitate their description, we place crops in categories based on their agronomic, industrial, and nutritional uses. An aspect of categorizing crops is naming them. All crops have a common name and a two-word scientific name.

Names:

Scientific:
Coffea spp.

English:
Coffee

Taxonomy:
Taxonomy is a system of organizing all life based on similar genetic or morphological characteristics. 

Genus:
Coffea

Family:
Rubiaceae

Order:
Gentianales

Crop Categories

Fruits
Stimulants
Food Crops
Tropical Crops

Coffee species:

There are about 10 species of coffee. The 3 most commonly used are Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica), Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora),  and Liberica coffee (Coffea liberica).

Uses:

Coffee is a stimulant. From ripe fruits the flesh of the berry is removed, this can be done manually or by machinery. The seeds are then fermented to remove the slimy layer which still covers the bean. Then the beans are washed to remove fermentation residue and dried. The green seeds are then roasted before they are used to brew coffee. There are many different ways to brew coffee: boiled, steeped, or pressured.

Introduction

The world of Coffee

My name is Lucy van Rijswijk, student at the HAS University of Applied Sience in 's-Hertogenbosch. At the moment, I study ''crop production'' within the course; ''International Food and Agribusiness''. I am very interested in the coffee sector. I enjoy a cup of coffee every day, but I ask myself, where does the coffee came from? And how is the coffee produced? To answer those questions, I started with a blog to get information about all the subjects that are important during the process of coffee. I will take you through some chapters to give you an insight in how coffee is made;

1. Introduction
2. Production process
3. Classifying and Naming crops
4. Plant Anatomy and Morphology
5. Plant Physiology and Growth
6. Improving plants
7. Impact on the environment
8. Soils
9. Cropping systems
10. Pests and diseases
11. Harvesting and Storage

Welcome!

Dear readers,

My name is Lucy van Rijswijk and I will give you a warm welcome to my blog about ''Coffee Beans''. Currently, I am a student at the HAS University in 's-Hertogenbosch and study ''crop production''. I am very interested in the production of coffee worldwide and I want to share my knowledge and information about this commodity with you.

I am sure that most of you enjoy your cup of coffee everyday, but what is the story behind that cup of coffee?

I hope you enjoy my blog, and if you have any comments on my writing, please leave a message!

Kind regards,

Lucy van Rijswijk 

x Lucy van Rijswijk - Coffeelover