Double delight for producer
A coffee producer is set to reap the rewards of a new planting technique that boosts young plant growth. Farm manager Mark Mac-Laughlin said it had been a huge success.
A MAREEBA coffee producer is set to reap the rewards of a new planting technique that boosts young plant growth.
About two years ago, Skybury Tropical Plantation started a trial of double cropping, that involved planting coffee trees alongside papaya trees to improve land sustainability.
Farm manager Mark MacLaughlin said the trial had been a huge success with the coffee trees growing well above their usual height due to the shade provided by the papaya trees.
He said this year would be the first harvest for the shadegrown coffee.
“Within the trial’s first six months we were so impressed with the results,” he said.
“As much as possible we’ve been planting double cropping blocks wherever we can.
“Generally two-year-old coffee is around your knee height, whereas these twoyear-old plants are seven feet tall (about 2.1m).
“It’s generally impossible to harvest coffee until around three to four years, that’s the time it takes when it’s grown under the relatively harsh conditions up here.”
The latest Rabobank Agribusiness commodity report predicts global Arabica coffee prices to continue at US$1.32 per pound (about $1.74 per 0.45kg) in coming months.
Mr MacLaughlin said he was expecting to harvest up to 50 tonnes total of the farm’s Red Bourbon and Yellow Catuai Arabica varieties this year.
“It’s been a good season with great uniform flowering of the trees resulting in impressive bean yields, so we expect to be harvesting right through to mid-July,” he said.
“Last year we had a few climatic factors that affected our overall yield so we’re considerably up on last year.”