Abstract

Coffee crop has been contributing a lion share to the Ethiopian economy. Despite of its economic significance, it suffers from many production constraints, of which arthropod pests influence both the yield and quality of coffee. The study was aimed to assess the prevalence of arthropod pests and indigenous management across two agro-climatic zones, in the Gedeo agroforestry systems. Twelve farmscapes were randomly selected from the two agro climatic zones. From each farmscape, samples were taken from traditional and improved coffee fields. On each site, two quadrats of 10 m × 20 m plots of coffee fields were sampled to assess the presence/absence of pests and / or damage symptoms, the number of pest arthropods and the damage level per coffee tree for determining the pest prevalence. The number of pests per plant was subjected to SPSS ver.20 statistical software, and the pair wise comparison was computed to compare each study sites. The result indicates that the three top prevalent coffee pests were coffee berry borer (H. hampei), coffee white stem borer (A. leuconotus), and Serpentine leaf minor (C. alertreuta). However, there is no significant difference on pest prevalence among the agroclimatic zones. Although disease incidence was very high across the study sites, the highest incidence was recorded in Gololcha kebele (82%), of Kochore district. In all cases the level of infestation was below standard, and coffee arthropod pests do not seem to be serious major problems responsible for the coffee production loss. Yet, we recommend multi seasonal and multi temporal data to arrive to the conclusion about the pest status of the study area.

Key words: Arthropod pests, coffee berry borer, damage level, farmscape, Gedeo.