Parkia roxburghii G. Don. - a leguminous shade tree for coffee

As it is well known, coffee is a shade loving plant. Common shade trees of coffee are Mango, Jack, Ficus species, Albizzia, Mahagony, etc. in most of the traditional areas of coffee. Natural forest species such as Neolitzea, Berserum, Sal, Hollock, Hollong, etc. also abound as shade in non-traditional areas where coffee in being extended (Reddy et al. 1982, 1986). These forest species may be either evergreen as in North Eastern States or deciduos as in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. Where there is no natural forest flora, several species of shade have been introduced from time to time to fulfill the shade conditions for coffee. In this direction, Coffee Board's Research Department has introduced many a species of shade for coffee. Of them Grevillea robusta (Silver Oak) and Maesopsis eminii as permanent shade trees and Erythrina lithosperma (Dadap) and Leucaena leucocephala (Subabul) and Solanum verbascifolium as secondary shade trees are pre-dominant and established to be the best shade plants for coffee either in low or high elevations (Reddy et al. 1982), Sreenivasan and Dharmaraj 1991). In further, pursuit of selective and suitable trees, Parkia roxburghii a leguminous tree was introduced for the first time in to the various Coffee Demonstration Farms and Coffee Research substations in 1984 by the Coffee Board from the North-Eastern States (Anonymous 1984). This species is reported to have distributed wild in Assam, Silher, Cachar and Chittagong (Brandis 1906). Balasubramanian and Ponnanma (1988) have discussed plant's foof value and other aspects of economic importance while making random study of its growth, development, flower and fruit production after its introduction into coffee farms. A detailed and systematic study of this species was therefore felt necessary to arrive at the suitability as a coffee shade tree and its cultivation. Hence the present study was undertaken and the results reported here are based on observations for the las five years

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	122390 Suresh Kumar, V.B., 115498 Sambamurthy Reddy, A.G., 108509 Ramachandran, M.
Format:	biblioteca
Published:	1992
Subjects:	COFFEA ARABICA, PARKIA ROXBURGHII, ARBOLES DE SOMBRA, LEGUMINOSAE, DISTRIBUCION NATURAL, PROPAGACION VEGETATIVA, SEMILLAS, CONTROL DE PLAGAS, CONTROL DE ENFERMEDADES,
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