EVALUATING TECHNIQUES FOR WEED CONTROL IN COFFEE IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

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Abstract
Recent incidence of the debilitating disease coffee rust has increased the economic importance of improving the management of coffee in PNG. In this respect weed control has potential for greatly increasing coffee yields in the short-run and significantly complementing other short-run yield improving practices. Weed control is especially important on smallholdings since those dominate the industry and on many smallholdings weeds are a serious problem. Several aspects of the problem of weed control in coffee including the available experimental information and the need for further research are examined and some guidelines are given for generating technical and economic information needed to formulate weed control strategies for coffee. This paper also analyzes empirical results from an experiment on influence of shade on weed control costs and concludes that the provision of shade trees in coffee stands has an important role to play in integrated weed control strategies.