Background image by Daily Coffee News. Screenshot shared via Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY): Genetic basis of phenotypic diversity in C. stenophylla: a stepping stone for climate-adapted coffee cultivar development. Front. Genet. 16:1554029. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2025.1554029
As the climate-sensitive arabica coffee species continues to face long-term existential threats, research from Sierra Leone sheds new light on the breeding potential of another species, stenophylla.
Published Aug. 13 in the journal Frontiers in Genetics, the study offers insight into the genetic makeup of the species, providing potential pathways for breeders to develop commercially viable stenophylla cultivars that may have higher tolerance to heat while offering desirable characteristics in the cup.
Building upon the pioneering work over the past seven years from researchers affiliated with UK’s Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, the new study comes from the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute (SLARI) with past funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Using advanced genome-wide association studies (GWAS), the research team analyzed 143 plants collected from Sierra Leone’s forest reserves and SLARI gene banks. They identified thousands of genetic markers linked to traits such as growth habit, fruit and seed shape, and structural resilience.
According to SLARI, the findings underscore “significant” genetic diversity in stenophylla, which is crucial to coffee breeding.
“For decades, ‘C. Stenophylla’ has been overlooked due to anthropogenic activities leading to the loss and reduction of natural habitats, and, most importantly, its lower yields compared to ‘Robusta,’ which has subsequently led to a sharp decline in wild population,” SLARI said in an announcement of the publication. “However, the study emphasizes that, through targeted breeding, the species could yield high-quality coffee while improving productivity, offering a viable solution for climate-resilient coffee farming.”
Climate resilience in coffee farming has attracted significant attention from the academic community in recent years as climate change redraws the map of where coffee can be viably grown.
Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here. For all the latest coffee industry news, subscribe to the DCN newsletter.
Related Posts
Comment