Friday morning we attended the two-hour Coffee Pruning and Leaf/Soil Sampling Field Day at the CTAHR Kona Research Station, which is about two miles away. We are so fortunate to have this University of Hawaii Extension office so close by. The staff is very knowledgable, patient, and friendly. We are really lucky to learn from the experiments they do at the Research Station demo field.
I’ve taken the pruning class before, but the attraction this time was to look at the demo trees that were stumped in February, March, April, and May in 2022. They also had trees that were stumped in November and December 2022 and January 2023. We could see how the timing of stumping affected the growth of the tree. They will collect data, including yield, over the next years. Just from the visual appearance without the data, it seems earlier is better (February). They think that sometime between Winter Solstice and end-February is probably the best time to prune for most farms.
Attending a field workshop is great to network with the staff and others who are growing coffee. You learn so much, and when you’re walking as a group amongst the trees, questions come up and it’s interesting to hear answers and others’ experience. At the end of the workshop, as a bonus a company had donated tools for a drawing. Our names got pulled and Hubby and I got Felco collapsible hand saw and bypass shears. Extra woo hoo!
