SAO PAULO: An early flowering in parts of Brazil's coffee fields in recent days is seen hurting quality and possibly volume of next year's arabica crop, although robusta output likely will be unaffected, according to market participants and coffee researchers.
Brazil is finishing the harvest of a record crop around 60 million bags of coffee, mostly of the arabica type that is widely used by higher quality brands. Robusta coffee is largely sought after by the instant coffee industry.
"It (flowering) came earlier than normal," said Andre Luiz Garcia, a researcher at Funda??o Procaf? in the top producing state of Minas Gerais.
He said those flowers might not develop into fruit because it is still dry this time of the year. "They could also fall from trees in areas where there is still harvesting going on," he said.
M?rio Ferraz, a technical development manager at the world's largest coffee cooperative Cooxup?, said an early flowering raises the prospect for a less uniform output in 2019.
"If these flowers become fruits, they will be ready too early," he says. "We will have fruits in different maturity stages, possibly hurting quality."
Some farmers, experts said, may choose not to do an additional early harvest to avoid extra costs, meaning those early fruits will mature, fall from trees and be lost.
A manager at a large exporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, in Brazil said production potential in the fields that reported the flowering could be reduced about 10 percent.
Cooxup? conducted a field evaluation in its areas of south and western Minas Gerais and eastern Sao Paulo state, and found that 20 percent to 25 percent of the trees registered flowers.
The flowering, researchers said, was caused by ample rains early in August following a very long dry spell.
Abra?o Verdin, coffee researcher at Incaper institute in Espirito Santo, Brazil's largest robusta state, considered flowering in those fields neutral for future production, since harvest was finished and trees were ready for the next cycle.
While arabica production already was expected to fall in 2019 due to the biennial coffee production cycle that alternates high and low production years, Verdin expects robusta production to reach a good level next year.
Brazil's government sees 2018 arabica production at 44.3 million bags, 29 percent more than in 2017. Robusta output is seen at 13.7 million bags, 27 percent up.
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