Grafting coffee for sustainability: Improving productivity, plant vigour and soil microbiome

Coffee is one of the most important traded tropical commodities globally, contributing significantly to the livelihood of millions of smallholder farmers worldwide. The coffee plant is frequently susceptible to biotic and abiotic stressors, including the cumulative pressure of climate change, affecting both bean yields and quality. Increasing pest and disease pressure and changing weather patterns, including extreme temperatures, abnormal precipitation (drought, flooding), and water scarcity, are putting the future of the coffee sector at risk, especially as most smallholder farmers depend on rain-fed agriculture. As part of developing adaptation strategies for farmers and building coffee farming systems that are resilient to climate change, as well as economically and environmentally sound, there is a need to develop plant material that is more resistant to biotic/abiotic stresses. The use of grafted plants on stress-tolerant rootstocks has been recommended as an effective and sustainable strategy for coffee crops to cope with climate change. This chapter provides an overview of grafting in coffee and its importance for productivity and health under environmental stresses, and connects grafting with recent advances in soil microbiome interactions. This chapter emphasises the important role of grafting in the development of new adaptive strategies to enhance resilience and mitigate climate change effects on coffee.