The experiment was established in the Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária de Minas Gerais - Epamig Experiment Station, located in the city of Machado, south of the Minas Gerais state, Brazil, in the year of 1992, with the objective of evaluating the consequences of the reduction on planting spaces among rows and among plants, upon beans yield and plant phenology (Coffea arabica L.). The experimental design used was a 4x 3 factorial with split plot at four distances between planting rows (2,0; 2,5; 3,0 e 3,5 m) and three distances among plants in the row (0,5; 0,75 e 1,0 m), and two different pruning times (one precociously conducted just after the harvest, on july 2002, and the other latter on january 2003), making a total 24 treatments arranged in randomized blocks with three replicates. In july 2002 and january 2003 a drastic pruning was clone and conducing two sprouts per plant. Vegetative growth and beans yield were evaluated in august 2004. Coffee plant spacing did not affected growth of any of the vegetative components of sprouting, during the evaluated period. All the vegetative characteristics were positively affected by the early pruning procedure, as well as the beans yield of the first harvest after pruning, which also showed to be positively influenced by the adoption of a narrower spacing plant. The coffee plants which were submitted to late prunning, had lancer bean yield in july 2004 as those precociously prunned.
Phenology; prunning; management; spacing of planting; Coffea Arabica
