COFFEE CULTIVATION GUIDE - Coffee Board of India

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To prepare cherry coffee, fruits should be picked as and when they are ripe.
Greens and under ripe fruits should be sorted out and dried separately. All the
extraneous matters like twigs and leaves should be separated from the fruits and dried.
The fruits should be spread uniformly in the drying yards at a thickness of 7 – 8 cm.
Clean cement or clay lined drying yards should be used for drying the cherry coffee.
Use of cow dung smeared or mud drying yards should be avoided. Drying coffee in
such yards causes mould formation in cherry coffee and quality of such coffees is
very inferior. Coffee should be stirred and ridged at least once every hour to facilitate
uniform drying. In the evening time cherry coffee should be heaped and covered with
polythene or tarpaulin sheets to avoid contact with the mist. The coffee will be fully
dry in about 10 -12 days under the bright weather conditions. Cherry coffee should be
dried to a moisture level of 12 to 12.5%. The cherry is dry when handful of the drying
cherry produces rattling sound when shaken and a sample forlit records the same
weight on two consecutive days. At the end of the harvest, the remaining fruits on the
plants should be completely stripped and fallen fruits should be gleaned cleanly. If
this method of complete stripping and gleaning is not followed, there is a danger of
Coffee Berry borer infestation during the coming years. Stripped and gleaned coffee
should be dried separately and should not be mixed with other coffee.
4. Coffee effluent management
Letting out of untreated coffee effluent to natural water streams or to open lands is
environmentally unsafe as it causes water and land pollution. Use of untreated coffee
effluent for irrigation is also prohibited by the law. Since, coffee processing coincides
with the dry season when amount of water present in the natural streams is at the
minimum, causing further concern of higher degree of pollution.
The coffee effluents emanating from the pulper units are highly acidic and contains
high amounts of dissolved and suspended biodegradable organic matters. These
effluents, if discharged into natural water bodies without treatment, pollute the
receiving bodies by depleting dissolved oxygen present in it. Polluting natural water
bodies will have an adverse effect on domestic users, aquatic life, livestock and water
course down the stream. The pollution load of coffee effluent is measured in terms of
Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen demand (COD).
Depending on the quantity of water used to process one unit of clean coffee (1 M.T),
the BOD and COD amounts vary in the effluent. The amount of BOD range between
8000 and 13,000 ppm and the COD levels will be around two times of the BOD
present in the effluent. One should note that BOD levels will increase if pulped water
is recycled during the processing.
In order to protect the environmental health and to control the pollution on
account of polluted water reaching the natural water bodies, agricultural land and
open spaces, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Government of India has
imposed certain laws and guidelines for handling effluents. These guidelines have to
be followed mandatorily failing which the person is severely punishable under the
law. As per the CPCB statute, the water to be used for irrigation should not contain
more than 100 ppm of BOD and water to be discharged to natural water bodies should
not contain more than 30 ppm of BOD. Since, coffee effluent contains more than the
stipulated levels of BOD and COD, it has to be treated by following recommended
methods of treatment before use in the field or discharging it to the streams.
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