The latest news and knowledge from World Coffee Research
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Maeve Holler
maeve@worldcoffeeresearch.org
504-356-2712
WCR Think + Drink
The Think + Drink is our annual gathering and report-out to the coffee community about WCR’s progress over the prior year and a preview of what’s ahead. Highlights include a virtual tour of the harvest of experimental F1 hybrids in El Salvador, the results of a recent global consultation about coffee R&D priorities, and an update on our 2020-2025 strategy.
Annual Report 2019
Between 2012 and 2019, World Coffee Research (WCR) built the foundation to execute, for the first time, a shared global R&D agenda for coffee agricultural research. That foundation includes an unprecedented global network of trials beginning to produce meaningful harvests, as well as collaborative engagement with stakeholders across the industry and the world. Our 2019 Annual Report provides the latest look at what we have produced through this approach, in collaboration with our global network of partners.
WCR Presents—Rust: A history
Join us for a deep dive into the history of coffee’s most dastardly disease: Coffee leaf rust. Histories of coffee leaf rust often, rightly, focus on its the human and economic costs. Since the initial outbreak in the mid-nineteenth century, though, rust has also transformed the global coffee industry in other, less obvious ways. This talk explores how rust has helped shape today’s global coffee industry, and may continue to do so in the future. This virtual talk comes to you from Stuart McCook, author of Coffee Is Not Forever (2019).
Study: Widespread lack of genetic conformity for Arabica coffee
A new, open-access study published in the Journal of AOAC International describes a way to authenticate Arabica coffee varieties using an SSR DNA fingerprinting method and describes how the method can help move the needle toward a more professional seed sector. The method has been used by World Coffee Research on over 2,500 coffee samples from farms, seed lots, and nurseries around the world; the authors confirm that, depending on the variety, genetic conformity (meaning the tested plant is indeed the variety it is thought to be) can range from under 40% (for a Gesha) to over 90% (for Marsellesa).
Study: All Arabica derived from a single ancestral plant
A new study published today used modern genetics tools to trace the history of the Coffea arabica species, the most common and economically important commercial coffee crop species worldwide. Researchers confirmed the significantly likelihood that C. arabica derived from a single speciation event, a spontaneous coupling of individuals of two different species—Coffea canephora and Coffea eugenioides—that brought together the two genomes to create a new species.
