ABSTRACT
During the 18th and 19th centuries, only Arabica was produced and that mainly in tropical America, the Caribbean, and Asia (Charrier and Eskes, 1997). However, this species appeared to be highly sensitive to parasitic threats, especially orange rust. That is why, in Africa, during the 19th century, the spontaneous forms of other species of coffee, especially C. canephora, were cultivated locally. For C. canephora, it was mostly in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Uganda that coffee plants from local forest populations, of the Robusta type, were cultivated. They were transferred to Java, a major breeding centre of C. canephora from 1900 to 1930 (Montagnon et al., 1998)~ At the same time, in Africa, the diversity of material cultivated was extended with the use of local spontaneous forms: Kouilou in Cote d1voire, Niaouli in Togo and Benin, and Nana in the Central African Republic. The material selected in Java was reintroduced in the Belgian Congo around 1916 at INEAC (Institut National pour l'Etude Agronomique du Congo BeIge), which has become the major breeding centre of C. canephora from 1930 to 1960 (Montagnon et al., 1998). However, although the overall performance of cultivated trees has increased noticeably after a few breeding cycles at
Java and the Belgian Congo, the cultivars nonetheless have remained genetically very close to individuals of the original natural populations. Moreover, in the African countries where the species originated and where C. canephora is cultivated, local spontaneous forms could be crossed with the introductions and the cultivated plants could revert to the wild forms.
