coffee question

i just got a little 9 inch high coffee plant, it didn't come with any growing info. what are the light requirements, fertilizer needs, pot size, etc?

I have a plant encyclopedia, and i searched it up.
it wants full sun, and it grows up to 6 - 9 meters. its temps are 12C to 36C.
it likes moderate to heavy soil, preferably fertile and well drained, with low salinity.
its water requirements are moist and humid. and its a zone 11 plant.
all this info i got from the encyclopedia, so i can't tell you anything from experience.
i hope it helps!!!
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
isaac

Coffee doesn't grow here where I am, it's too low, hot and humid. It grows in the foothills starting at around 300 meters in altitude and going up to about 2000 meters. The areas where it grows are tropical, with high rainfall, steep slopes and good drainage and high humidity. It can grow in shade up under the canopy and shade grown coffee is quite desirable so if you can give it lots of light you might not need full sun. I would think that you will need to have it in a greenhouse in Morgan Hill.

I had a coffee tree growing at my place when I bought it. It had been under a large Raintree which the previous owner felled before I came. It didn't seem to like the extra sunlight, but still grew. Then the ants set up their little "sap-sucker farms" on the branches stressing the plant out even more. What killed it was that I put vaseline around the trunk to stop the ants from climbing up whilst I destroyed their sap-sucking animals. However the vaseline ended up killing the bark on the coffee tree and ring-barked it. It didn't concern me greatly because I don't like coffee, can't even stand the smell of it. So it's never been replaced.

The coffee trees here in my garden struggle, I am also at sea level. The most luxuriant ones I have are in shaded locations. We don't do anything with the beans either - mostly tea drinkers in our house - but the smell of the blossoms in the spring is just wonderful. I know Carol (and maybe Dave) has quite a few trees in her garden and her hubby harvests and roasts his own coffee.

Good luck with your plant, I guess it needs quite a bit more humidity which I am lacking in my area. I think they need trace elements too...They really have beautiful leaves, and I understand they make stunning house plants in cold areas if you can meet their fussy requirements.

Jenn

oh i forgot to mention that it is a houseplant becaus it gets to cold here for outside growth. ill have to mist it every once in a while because there is very low humidity here.

Hmmmm, coffee might do well behind my house. The east facing house is on a cut into a steep hill, there is just a little full sun midday in the back of the house, then it's behind the hill, which is to the west. My elevation is?? 300 feet???? need to go look at my

Only problem might be salt, a bit salty here, from the breaking sea a mile away, breeze comes this way.

Is there a way to measure salt??

i have heard from several sites that if you put it in full direst sun it will grow fast and healthy. but other sites say even the slightest amount of direct sunlight will burn the leaves. i dont know which one to believe!!!

I think there are two major kinds, one that's mountain grown under tall trees, filtered sunlight. And another kind that's cultivated on the flat, mechanically harvested, for the major American brands.

I'd introduce your plant to sun very gradually and carefully, to see if it likes it.

There's 2 main types of coffee bush, the Arabica and the Robusta. Robusta can take higher temperatures, Arabica suffers a lot from either higher or lower temperatures. Mine was the Robusta.

is there any way to tell the difference between an arabica/robusta plant when its only 9 inches tall, do they look similar??

I googled it but the results only seem to describe the difference between the beans. Any chance they might know at the place you got it from?

I googled:

arabica and robusta plants difference

and got a list of sites to check out....

here's what I was talking about....

arabica, known as Arabica coffee, accounts for 75-80 percent of the world's production. Coffea canephora, known as Robusta coffee, accounts for about 20 percent and differs from the Arabica coffees in terms of taste.

While Robusta coffee beans are more robust than the Arabica plants, but produces an inferior tasting beverage with a higher caffeine content.

and, boooo:

The coffee plant has become a major source of oxygen in much of the world. Each hectare of coffee produces 86 lbs of oxygen per day, which is about half the production of the same area in a rain forest.

Nothing about a difference in plants/leaves. but robusta can be grown at lower elevations, while Arabica needs minimum 1800 feet elevation and a definite dry/wet season

i got it at ikea (a furniture store) so i highly doubt they know anything about plants. judging by the looks of the other plants they had there, i could tell they did not take very good care of their plants. however the coffee plant looked realy healthy. so it must be relatively hardy, and not too picky. there were aboout 7 plants in the pot but i seperated them and put 2 of them in front of a south faceing window, so it gets full fun 3/4 of the day. i put the others in the bathroom window where it gets bright indirect light and occasional misting from when i take a shower, i think those ones will probably do better.

If their plants were looking unhelathy it's probably because they were using the wrong kind of furniture polish on them ;O)

It's more than likely that robusta would be more available there. Ikea would have got them from some wholesale nursery. They might be able to tell you which nursery it was. Spreading your plants out like that is a good idea, a case of "not having all your eggs in the one basket".

hahahaha.

ya iv got them all over my house, living room, bathroom, kitchen, patio. haha
but unfortunatly they are slow growers. i guess it takes 3 years before they fruit, so iv got a while to waite. =(
i saw a nice 2 foot high plant at a local nursery and it had little fruits on it, i was REALY close to buying it but it was $50 so i opted for the little $2.50 ikea version instesd. lol

Can I just say... I miss IKEA! It and Trader Joe's are about the only things I miss from the US. Well, and maybe Bed, Bath and Beyond but I could forget about that one.

...sigh!

LOL Tropic!

hey, I just saw some plants at a local nursery with berries, too! and I don't remember the price, but it was a lot. hum funny that all of a sudden these plants show up so far apart.

But three years, someone had to be coddling them for that long....

And you can't buy one:

"Robusta coffee plant depends on cross pollination."

I'm learning all about coffee here, lol

here's where I'm getting all this info...

http://www.coffeeresearch.org/agriculture/coffeeplant.htm

extranjera-
how can you survive without a trader joes!!!!!

molamola-
i was like "wow molamola realy knows alot about coffee growth/production"!
and then i visited the link you sent me and i realized that you just copy and pasted all the info..hahaha

and i realy hope its not a robusta! i only realy want one coffee plant in my house when they get bigger, i dont want to have to cross pollinate all of the flowers..lol

haha, I cheat!!!! But it's tiring, I think I'll start with links from now on...

it might be easier for you...
this thread has been very interesting! i hope your coffee plant survives and does well!! i am going to check my plant encyclopedia to see if they migh show a difference between the plants. if they do, i will be sure to let you know!
isaac

We have orchards of Arabica...and they grow out in the full sun. Also in filtered sun part of the day. We are at 900' so we do have cool nights in the winter...and they grow far up the mountain so the direct sun/coolness is loved by them. One grower uses EM as a fertilizer/soil amendment exclusively...grows great coffee...They (the trees) don't grow so well further down the mountain.... too hot. Even in Kona they grow at the higher, rainier elevations.

Carol

I need to get started with EM.....

Before you spend the $$$$, why don't you try just using molassas and something organic (like fish fertilizer, chicken manure ) and watering it in to start the beneficial micro organisms?... I do that in my vegetable beds and the IMOs thrive and everything loves it.... I used to use EM, but I think on a large scale it can get expensive....

Carol

Yeah, fish fertilizer might help, i use it everywhere in the garden!

cody, bonsai coffee trees?

i agree with westraad, this thread has been realy interesting! i have learned alot about coffee!
alohahoya-
what is EM??
molamola-
i thought about bonsaiing one just for the heck of it but i looked on google and didnt find anything about it...so i think they cant be bonsaied??? haha

EM = Effective Micro organisms. www.emamerica.com will tell you all about it.

wow...EM does everything!! does it realy work as well as it says?

Yup

hmm...mabye i should try some...its not in place of a fertilizer. right?

No, it's microscopic critters, sort of. You must treat them right, get started off the website, and go to:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/972808/

and other threads in that forum, composting.

It CAN be used as a fert. at about 1 teas. to a gal of water...with equal molassas. What it does is keep the MOs up so the worms are having fun eating them and poooping away. A coffee farm here only uses EM...personally, I use it for the micro organisms and my vegies love it.

I keep thinking if I put molasses in my garden the ants would be sending up fireworks and moving there along with their aphid herds as fast as their 8 legs could carry them. How do you keep it from becoming an ant fest?

lol, I think the molasses is too diluted for that. Good description!