The first action item for the new season is to prune the shade trees above the coffee plantation. Selva Negra's trees are indigenous to the area and most are centennial trees, yet we do manage the shade through pruning. The pruning is done in the dry season April & May. So that when the rainy season (from June to February) starts again this shade has recuperated. Part of the pruning process involves the cutting down of all ivy and dead branches of all shade trees all over the plantation. Pruning of the shade is done selectively all over the farm, an area is picked because of excess shade and it is pruned. We have 60% of shade in the summer, and when we prune the shade of the coffee we leave 40% of shade. Usually we come back to this same area in about 6 years. Approximately 20% of the shade of the plantation is pruned each year.
The second part of the pruning process is to prune the coffee trees. The punning of the coffee trees involves the following stages:
- Selective- The entire coffee plantation is scouted for any coffee tree that looks without leaves and appears that it will not have a harvest, regardless where it is, it will be pruned.
- By Row- An area that is in regular shape, and hasn't been pruned in at least 5 years, will be selected and they will prune a whole row. If, in between there is a coffee tree that bears a lot of flowers and will provide a great harvest, it will be spared, otherwise the whole row will be pruned. The next year they will prune another row, and they will have the whole plantillo in great shape in 3 years or more.
- By lot- If there was an area in which the harvest was great, yet many of the coffee trees are damaged, they will be pruned and the few that are in good shape will be left. Now this is not necessarily a prune of all the green of the coffee trees, they may prune and leave the bottom part, as it has good branches at the bottom, they call this a rock and roll pruning.
Re pruning - When coffee tree is pruned a lot of new branches come out, we need to eliminate a few and leave only 3 or 4 so that the plant can really support them and produce a crop. This work is done twice a year, one now, as soon as they are done with the weed control, and the other about August/September, as with the rainy season some new branches will come out and they have to eliminate them as well.
Cleaning and Composting - Deshierba y Caseo
In the meantime, other workers are preparing compost, which at Selva Negra it is an operation of its own. We produce over about 4 million lbs of compost; it is used primarily in the coffee plantation but also in Selva Negra's greenhouses, fruit and vegetable production. Other workers are clearing the ground of weed using weed eaters and machetes, and yet others are clearing the area around each one of the coffee trees, all this is done to prevent the use of even organic pesticides and to make room at the base of each tree where to apply the compost - our fertilizer.
The second part of cleaning the plantillo involves making sure that there are no weeds, or bushes around the coffee area, this is to eliminate possible mosquito harvest as well as any other insects. This means also the cleaning of the "espadillo", the spike looking yucas that we plant at the side of the roads. Each plantillo has a surrounding plant, and all that area has to be cleaned of any weed, vine, bushes, etc.,
Parasite Removal - Deslama y Desbejuca
Manual parasite removal is a critical aspect of maintaining the farm organic. There are two main types of work that we do.
- Deslama: This is the cleaning of the moss of the coffee trees, usually at the bottom, sometimes you see parasites like ferns growing as well as orchids and bromeliads, they look pretty, but are not healthy to the coffee trees. The main reason is that they host "ojo de gallo", this is a plague of the trunk as well as on the leaves, it makes the tree drop all the leaves, and then it has nowhere to breathe.
- Desbejuca: This is the vine that grow on the coffee trees, like the morning glory, we also have one that we call batata, it is a strangling type, that if you leave it for a whole year, the plant will loose all its branches and most of the leaves. They look like dead; this happens a lot on abandoned farms, the only solution is to prune the coffee trees from the bottom, so they can recuperate. Here we eliminate the vine.
Broca Traps - Riega de Trampas
This is the placing of the "broca" traps. We build them and we place them on the coffee trees. This year we have 5,000. We're very interest to see how many brocas we collect.
Foliage fertilization - Fertilizacion edafica
There are two main types of fertilizers applied to the coffee trees this time of the year, one is the compost mentioned above. The other is one applied to the leaves of the trees. This will be done using the liquid from the worm farm and will be applied approximately 9 times in the year.
How do we collect this fertilizer: This liquid fertilizer comes out from the worm farm. At the bottom of each canal where we have the worms making compost, we have a perforated pvc pipeline, from the beginning to the end of the canal. This pipe collects the water used to maintain the worms moist, this water for moisture filters though all the worms castings and falls on this pipe, this pipe takes it outside where we have a drum collecting the liquid. We collect about 15 gallons a day out of each canal, sometimes more. Al this water is a concentrated fertilizer. This is mixed then with regular water or other produce to fertilize the coffee, flowers and vegetables. We've been told that it has 27 different nutrients.
Clearing the rain drainage - Drenajes
Clearing the rain drainage. In the farm, we have almost 10 kilometers of roads that weave around the estate. They need to be re-done every year. During the rainy season we have to permanently be inspecting them as they get stuck with leaf litter and dirt from the roads and proper drainage needs to be ensured this time of the year, to prevent problems in the rainy season.
Shade Trees - Arboles de sombra
We have to establish more shade trees in the new area where we want to plant coffee. We are converting old pastureland into coffee plantillos, these areas are washed out due to the long exposure to sun, and minimal fertilization. We have an extensive amount of work ahead of us in order to establish the shade required to harvest our level of quality. Prior to planting any shade trees, holes, 3 ft. deep and around, need to be dug and filled with compost to prepare the land. So far we are not even half way into the areas that we're converting. The trees that we do plant often die as the land is still too hot. This year we will place, in the rainy season, a lot of temporary shade like banana trees and castor oil bushes, they will help create better growing conditions for the shade trees. The temporary shade will later be removed.
