The Laurina cultivars of Coffea arabica L. has a reduced plant size, small leaves, small and pointed seeds and low yield capacity. However the seeds have a good cup quality and the desirable characteristic of low caffeine content The Laurina phenotype is supposed to be controlled by a pair of recessive alleles lrlr, with pleiotropic effect. Due to the market interest for coffee with low caffeine content, selection work has been initiated some years ago in order to improve yield of the Laurina cultivars. Crosses and backcrosses (BC1) were undertaken with selected plants of the Mundo Novo cultivars of C. arabica and the best F1 plants were selfed. A yield trial was established in Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil, with two groups of F2 plants, normal (LrLr, Lrlr) and Laurina (lrlr) with BC1 plants, and 'Mundo Novo' and 'Catuaí Amarelo' as control cultivars. Results from the first eight consecutive harvests indicated that BC, and F2 laurina plants had higher yields than the normal F2 plants, however lower than that of the control cultivars. Some BC1 and F2 plants revealed high individual yield indicating that continued breeding of these progenies could result in selection of commercially acceptable Laurina progenies.
Coffee Laurina and Mundo Novo cultivars; hybridization; caffeine