[Effects of fertilization on the growth, photosynthetic characteristics and yield of Coffea arabica].

Coffea arabica is a major economic plant in agriculture plantation in tropical and subtropical areas in the world. This paper reports the experimental results on the fertilization strategy in Yunnan, China. Effects of varied levels of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) nutrients on the growth, photosynthetic characteristics and yield in three-year old saplings of C. arabica with the density of 4500 individuals per hectare were measured. In general, N is the most important factor influencing the growth, photosynthetic capacity and yield of C. arabica, followed by K and P, respectively. The yield can be improved through spraying appropriate amount of trace elements in the leaves. The optimum matching experiments in fertilization level of N:P2O5: K2O is at the ratio of 1:0.5:1. The high yield of C. arabica need high nutrient demands, but the optimum amount of fertilizer of N, P2O5, K2O is 100, 50, 100 g per individual according to the cost-benefits analysis. The yield of C. arabica was closely related with the numbers of branch, total leaf areas and maximum rate of net photosynthesis (Amax) among different treatments. Different fertilization strategy had no significantly effects on the photochemical efficiency in dawn, but all indicators showed that the higher-fertilized plants could significantly alleviate diurnal photoinhibition.