Good Land, Wise Development

[?]All Expert's "If"

Highlands Coffee Needs Good Land, Wise Development

According to Professor Y. B. Goto, a world authority on coffee 'ture, one quarter of the plantations that he inspected in the Papua ;w Guinea Highlands in February are on good coffee land, about one- If on mediocre land, and the remaining quarter on poor land. But :re was a promising future for the industry—if wisely developed.

i clear, factual review of coffee »tential in the P-NG Highlands, •ofessor Goto outlined the e, as he saw it, to a large ;ring of interested people in lank of NSW Reception Rooms, ey, on March 18. e Professor is Director of the ultural Extension Service of the srsity of Hawaii, and his recent lands survey was arranged by R. A. Colyer, of Sydney, and ;ored by Colyer Watson (NG) the Bank of New South Wales, nonwealth Bank, Mr. Robert ing, and the Goroka Farmers’

Settlers’ Assn. jr the past 2 years Professor has visited more than a dozen Ties in the interests of coffee ?rs and agriculturists and he greatly impressed with the ex and possibilities of the almost i P-NG Highlands as a future i country.

Of the 87 plantations he visited in an intensive and well-organised survey, 73 were European owned, 7 native owned, 5 operated by Missionary societies, and 2 by the P-NG Department of Agriculture.

To-day ardbica coffee planting in this cool, spacious tableland approaches 3,200 acres. Of this total three-quarters is in the Eastern Highlands, 400 acres is in the Wau

area, and about 200 acres on native land.

The fertility of the vast, un exploited balance of Highlands land is, the Professor said, “spotty,” and much of it, he emphasised, has either been worked for centuries by the natives to exhaustion point, or is regarded by them as fit only for tribal “fighting lands.”

But there is much good land amongst the poor and mediocre, with the necessary 2 to 4 ft of rich topsoil and well-drained subsoil.

In the Highlands, a healthy growth of pitpit seems to point to good coffee land. Kunai grass is also a surface indication of fair coffee country, while the presence of a shrub similar to the well known Australian bottle-brush is indicative of poor coffee land.

Much mediocre land already planted or awaiting development promises well at to-day’s coffee prices if assisted with adequate drainage, fertilisers and cover crops.

The Professor hesitated to make any recommendations on choice of

fertilisers until more is known of the existing properties and de ficiencies of the Highlands soils.

This, he said, was a matter of research between planters and the P-NG Department of Agriculture.

He is of the opinion that phosphate content is low, or in a form not available to the coffee plant.

Professor Goto was happy about the Highlands climate. It was close enough to the ideal of two dry months plus ten months of well spread rainfall.

The dry period in the Highlands could be offset by moisture con servation through adequate shading and mulching.

In its natural state the coffee plant is a forest shrub and “forest land is No. 1 coffee land.” Professor Goto recommended that forest land be made available to interested planters.

Given depth of topsoil and good drainage, the other basic needs of a successful coffee plantation are adequate shade (against both heat and wind), and good seedlings.

Present experience in the High lands suggests Albizzia Stipulate, as an ideal shade tree but he believes the root growth of the native Albizzia is too extensive and takes nourishment from the coffee plants.

The natives favour the casuarina as a shade tree and wind-break but

for the same reason as above, the Professor recommends it only with reserve.

He urged experimentation with shade trees until experience provided the best answers. Plant shade trees 18 feet apart, he says, then, when

well developed, thin as observab and local factors suggest.

As regards choice of Arah varieties, he urged specialisati and he himself favours Typica ano Bourbon.

Coffee plants are delicate and J

constant nurturing and in ual attention. There is no e in running a coffee planta from the club verandah, ifessor Goto suggests 30 to 50 as adequate for a planter isly interested in coffee hus ry. Carefully promoted, such rea will provide the capital for ision later. ere is no such thing as uniform ng practice. It depends so much le form, structure, health and system of individual plants, ocal cropping facilities and ex ace. ners frequently are reluctant ndertake drastic pruning of ng branches. In Hawaii, bear ranches are never left for more six years.

ROPER processing can produce e worst of coffee from the best beans and Professor Goto 1 planters to get together now omote efficient communal pro ig plants, essential for the iction of a uniformly high ard of Highlands coffee, i processing plants cater for eeds of more than 1,000 coffee ers in Hawaii, considered that a number of stablished NG European plant s were too close together to ivailable local labour to best itage.

Dressed with the hydro-electric tial in the Highlands, he re lended its early development to i the power essential to all ssing requirements. 2h of the coffee country in ii is stony and of poor fertility he desirable U tons of green per acre is achieved by the use le equivalent of 745 lbs of mium sulphate, 96 lbs of super ihate, and 204 lbs of potassium ate per acre. duction figures of up to 1 ton :re have already been achieved !W Guinea and the local pro is currently fetching about )er ton. some Hawaiian plantations ngs planted in the 1890’s are >roducing good crops from the umps. evidence of the future coffee ects in the Highlands, Pro- Goto pointed to the healthy reductive 20-year-old plants in jutheran Mission plantations, vaiian planters have to con with labour costs of £4 to £5 ead per day and all field and ssing procedure was geared to the most of this outlay, fessor Goto believes that coffee ■e could make a substantial ibution to the future economic > of the Highlands’ natives and opes that they will be given g assistance to contribute to the quantity and quality of the industry. one instance he addressed 400 natives and demonstrated ng and procedure in shade :hinning.

He was interested in some re actions, as conveyed to him through the village spokesman: • What price could the Professor offer for coffee to-day? • When was the Administration going to supply them with free fertiliser? • And as their arms became tired when picking the coffee berries, was there a machine that could do this? t Aticipating local benefit from the havoc in Fiji’s banana plantations as a resulh of the January floods, Western Samoa banana growers pre pared to ship 25,000 cases per Fer ruary Matua, but only 15,000 shocks were on hand at Apia in which to ship them, due to some mis-manage ment, source unknown.