JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia has launched an initiative to increase high-quality coffee seedling production using tissue culture technology as part of the Kingdom’s push to develop its coffee sector and promote sustainable agriculture.
Led by the Sustainable Agricultural Rural Development Program, or Saudi Reef, in cooperation with the National Centre for Research and Development of Sustainable Agriculture, also known as Estidamah, the project will plant 50,000 seedlings and boost the productivity of coffee trees by 30 percent by the end of 2025.
Majid Al-Brikan, spokesperson for Saudi Reef, said the initiative began with selecting six elite genetic samples from coffee trees in Jazan, Asir and Baha.
These were supplied to labs, producing 17,000 somatic embryos and 4,000 plants, now undergoing the rooting phase.
So far, 1,200 plants have been transferred to greenhouse facilities for acclimatisation, and another 400 seedlings are in the hardening stage.
