DIVERSIFICATION OF ARABICA COFFEE (COFFEA ARABICA L.) WITH ENSET FOR SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION

Abstract

Crop diversification refers to the practice of cultivating various crops on a single farm or
within a particular area. In general, crop diversification is utmost importance as it contributes
significantly to the maintenance of food security, environmental sustainability, and economic
stability within the agricultural industry. The study was conducted at Gera Agricultural
Research Sub-Center from 2014 to 2020 cropping seasons to draw biologically and
economically sound recommendations for the coffee to enset intercropping ratio in highland
agro-ecologies like Gera, located in southwestern Ethiopia. The experimental treatments
included sole coffee, sole enset, one row of coffee to one row of enset (1C:1E), two rows of
coffee to one row of enset (2C:1E), three rows of coffee to one row of enset (3C:1E), and a
staggered planting pattern where enset was planted at the center of four coffee trees with a
4m distance. The treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with three
replications. There were significant differences (P≤ 0.05) observed among the treatments in
terms of the mean clean coffee and kocho yield, and overall quality over the years. The
highest overall years mean clean coffee yield (1573.75kg/ha) was obtained from sole coffee,
followed by staggered planting and the 2C:1E treatment, which yielded 1173.45kg/ha and
1087.17kg/ha, respectively. For kocho, the highest overall years mean (6276kg/ha) was
obtained from the equal ratio (1C:1E) treatment, followed by staggered planting pattern with
a yield of 5167kg/ha. The staggered treatment showed the highest Land Equivalent Ratio
(LER) and yield advantage, with values of 2.06 and 0.766, respectively, for the overall mean.
The results also indicated that the overall quality of the crops fell within highly acceptable
ranges. In conclusion, the staggered intercropping coffee with enset proved to be the most
effective planting system.